


just as long as you stand, stand by me

by gilligankane



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22124401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: Okay, Trini admits, so what they did together wassave the world.Turns out, saving the world is a lot like summer camp.They promise to stay in touch but friendship bracelets fall off eventually.
Relationships: Kimberly Hart/Trini
Comments: 47
Kudos: 475





	just as long as you stand, stand by me

**Author's Note:**

> I lied; I can't stay away from this. So here's a fic about Trini making friends - slowly and uneasily and not all at once. (And maybe she makes something just a little bit more.)

Here’s the thing about bands: they all break up in the end. 

The pretty boy frontman goes solo. The keyboardist picks up a gig at a piano bar that pays. The bassist has a kid. The drummer gets married and drops the band. The guitarist just leaves one day and changes their number and one day you see him working at Best Buy and he pretends like he doesn’t know you. 

It happens. 

Led Zeppelin. The Police. Rage Against the Machine. The Eagles. Alice in Chains. Queen.

And okay, maybe Queen split up because Freddie Mercury died.

But so did Billy. 

-

They slap Rita into space and Kim does barrel rolls above them, a shot of pink across the blue sky. Trini can hear Zack whooping and his Zord stomps happily, leaving large prints in the already-broken asphalt. Billy and Jason are laughing somewhere near her, hysterical about something Trini knows nothing about. It’s fine. They’re fine. 

Nothing matters except this: they saved Angel Grove - they saved  _ the world _ \- and they did it together. As a team. As friends. 

For a moment, Trini feels like she’s on top of the world.

-

And then the dust around them settles and the thing is:

They’re Power Rangers. 

They’re not  _ friends _ . 

And who do they think they’re kidding, really? They’ve only known each other for 11 days. They haven’t even  _ liked _ each other for more than half of them.

They slap Rita into space and things go back to normal. 

They’re just kids who never talked before now. Who never sat next to each other in the cafeteria. Who didn’t pass notes or study together or spend nights up at the mine with warm bottles of beer. She doesn’t suddenly find Zack Taylor completely bearable. She doesn’t think Jason Scott’s dad routine is all that endearing. She doesn’t quite forgive Kimberly Hart for not knowing anything about her. 

(But Billy is  _ Billy _ and he  _ died _ . He died because of Rita. Because  _ Trini _ led them to Rita. So she stops by his house that same night and lets him show her his newest invention. Lets him make sure his mom knows what her name really is. Lets him make her lunch and lets him talk about his dad.

When she leaves, she tries to pretend she’s absolved herself of her sins.)

So what? So they know a few secrets about each other. They don’t  _ know _ each other. Not really. They just know pieces of each other. Fragments. Slivers. They each have a coin, but they don’t make a rainbow. They don’t make each other  _ whole _ . 

No. They’re not friends. They’re just people who experienced something together. Banded together by a traumatic event. Like the victims of a plane crash. Hostages in a robbery. They went into the fire together and came out on the other side.

No one dies alone. But no one lives together, either.

-

It ends too quickly and they all go their separate ways after that:

Kim’s crime and Amanda’s hatchet are buried under the rubble that used to be Amanda’s car. The cheerleaders need a flyer still and Kim was born to be in the air. She slips back into her uniform as easily as she slipped into her Zord and she barely glances over when they pass in the hallway. 

Jason’s knee is mostly healed and the football team is still trying to stem the bleeding from losing him. They’re looking for their quarterback and there he is again. He picks up a football and he’s back, walking the halls with his buddies - with Ty Fleming - and laughing at jokes she’s sure aren’t that funny. 

Billy goes back into his workshop, back to talking to his dad. He sinks into the comfort of the mines and Trini sees him there, once, before she stops trying to find him in the rocks.

Zack hides in plain sight. Always on the horizon, sitting on the top of the old train car staring out into the distance. Always close to his mom, just a call away. 

They all quietly slip back into who they were before. Before the coins. Before the Power Rangers. Before they thought they might be friends. 

It leaves Trini exactly as it found her: alone in the back of biology, headphones in and the world shut out.

-

Her Saturday detention lasts exactly two weekends. She throws Kim’s locker door into an English class and her penance is 8 hours of ‘Better Choices’ workbooks and the smell of Tommy Oliver’s feet. 

She spends it all with her headphones on, doodling over the stock photos they use in the packet. She gives the men mustaches that don’t fit their faces and the women long, twisting tendrils of hair that only sometimes remind her of Rita. They’re each in their own little bubble. Kim does her nails and her phone vibrates just loud enough for Trini to hear in the quiet spaces when her song changes. Jason pours over his playbook, memorizing new offenses. Billy arranges and rearranges his colored pencils, outlining some type of diagram in smooth, even strokes. Zack sleeps. 

They sit tables apart from each other. Worlds apart from each other. 

Trini looks up once, but when she catches Kim’s eye, Trini looks away. 

-

Then the humming feeling comes.

She feels it most at night. Something whirs inside of her chest.

It’s not her coin. That sits on her bedside table and glows softly, like a nightlight. This is something different. Something under her skin. If she fine-tunes this thing inside of her, she can feel them. Billy’s restlessness. Jason’s exhilaration. Zack’s sadness. 

Kim’s confusion. 

That makes her pause. Just for a moment.

Kim cuts through whatever this thing is more than any of them. Trini  _ feels _ her. She can’t explain it. It’s like a phantom limb. It’s there but not  _ there _ and it keeps Trini up some nights, staring at her ceiling of glow-in-the-dark stars. She doesn’t remember making constellations there. Doesn’t know why she picked Grus and Taurus and Draco and Aries.

Well, she  _ knows _ . She just doesn’t know why she hasn’t taken them down yet.

But she stares too long at Grus. At the long wings of the crane. 

Kim sits in the front row of biology and Trini picks another lab partner.

-

Trini ditches school one afternoon and heads for the mine instead. She’ll have to explain it to her mom, later. If she can. She’s not sure how to put into words the way her chest tightened when she saw Kim sitting in class with her cheerleading uniform on. When Kim glanced at her and looked away. It felt like being in the Zord again. Not being able to breathe in. Not being able to breathe out. She remembers Kim’s laugh over the comms and tries to find it again in  _ this _ Kim, holding court at the front of the room as Amanda and Harper gossip next to her. 

She can’t. She can’t remember what it sounds like anymore.

She doesn’t know why that bothers her.

So Trini climbs up to her spot and drops her jacket to the ground. She finds a song she likes. Something hard and loud. Something that pushes the thoughts from her head. She drowns in the bass and she can breathe. The air stings her lungs this high off the ground and it feels  _ good _ .

But then she feels something else. Anger, maybe. Hot and choking in the back of her throat. She lets her left leg down and turns slowly so her back faces the spread of Angel Grove, the docks and the school and the city they saved. She lifts her right leg and focuses, pushing the anger away until it doesn’t burn. 

She sees Zack across the dry quarry, sitting on the empty train car. She holds her tree pose and his eyes.

He blinks and turns away first.

-

She doesn’t go to the mine after that. 

It doesn’t feel like  _ hers _ anymore.

But it still calls to her at night. Something courses through her bloodstream and settles restlessly in the tips of her fingers. She squeezes her hands tightly into fists and makes herself stay in bed. 

-

Principal Gibson calls a schoolwide meeting 5 days after they send Rita into space. He has guidance counselors and grief specialists and passes out boxes of tissues as he talks about what happened to their town. He says they need to process the event. To talk about it in the open and acknowledge what they saw and what they felt. He fumbles over it all, gratefully passing it over when one of the grief specialists takes the stage.

Two rows down and one seat over, Jason tenses just a little. Trini sees it in the line of his jaw. His buddies snicker under their breath and knock each other back and forth. Across the aisle, Billy’s head snaps up and then he nearly snaps the pencil in his hand. Trini stares at a spot between Kim’s shoulder blades and wonders what she’s thinking. If she’s thinking. Amanda and Harper whisper in her ear but Kim doesn’t move.

She nearly doubles over at the panic she feels radiating off of each of them.

One of the girls in her English class looks over, mildly concerned. “Are you alright?” Her face softens. “Did you… did you get hurt in the attacks? I know Amanda Clark’s car was wrecked by some flying debris.” She glances at the stage and lowers her voice. “I bet it was those Power Rangers. That’s what they’re calling them, I think. Freaks.”

Trini’s whole body goes tense and anger floods through her system. Kim sits up and looks side to side before she turns around, finding Trini through the crowd easily. 

Kim must feel it too.

“Showing up and wrecking half the town,” the girl continues. “Who do they think they are, right?” 

Kim is still staring at her.

Amanda looks back over her shoulder and frowns at Trini. She leans into Kim and whispers something in her ear. Kim turns away.

-

“What about your friends, Trini?” her mom asks one night.

Trini pushes her broccoli around on her plate.

Her mom hides a sigh. “I met Billy Cranston’s mother at the grocery store today. She introduced herself. She said you’re friends with her son.”

Not  _ friends _ . Power Rangers.

It’s been 10 days and they’re not friends.

“We know each other,” she finally says.

She knows Billy’s favorite color and that he blew up his lunchbox and that he misses his dad. 

She doesn’t really know him at all.

Her mom tries for a smile. “He’s welcome to come over anytime. I hope you know that.”

Trini tries for her own kind. “I’ll tell him,” she lies.

-

Kim’s mom catches her on her way out of school one day, flagging her down with a big wave. “Trini!” she calls across the parking lot.

Trini stumbles a little bit, her backpack heavy on one side. Everything inside of her pushes to run. To get out of here before she gets stuck talking to Kim’s mom -  _ Kim’s mom _ \- like she’s one of Kim’s friends. But Madeline Hart barrels down on her quickly, cutting through the parking easily. Weaving in and out of cars.

“How’re you?” she asks, pulling up to a stop. She smiles so brightly. The same smile the first, and only, time Trini met her, waiting on the front steps of Kim’s house. Waiting for Kim to come down so they could go to Krispy Kreme. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”

12 days. 12 days since they sent Rita into space. Since they morphed. Since they put their Zords away in the mountainside and jumped up through the water. Since they stopped at the edge of the mine, suspended for a single moment. 12 days since they’ve talked.

“You know,” Trini says. “Busy.”

Madeline smiles. “I bet. Now that Kimberly is back on the cheerleading squad, she’s been going and going. I’m starting to wonder if that girl sleeps.” She reaches out, one hand resting lightly on Trini’s shoulder. It burns through her shirt. “But you know all of that, of course.”

Trini doesn’t. But she nods and she smiles with too many teeth. “She sure is busy.”

Madeline holds up a gym bag. “She forgot it this morning. Do you know if she went out to the field, or if she’s still in the locker room?”

“Oh.” Trini looks around desperately. The field looks empty from here, but the cheerleaders don’t practice on the side closest to the school. She takes a deep breath, trying to find Kim through the haze in her head. The connection fizzles a little and Trini comes up with nothing. “I’m not really sure, sorry.”

Madeline smiles. “That’s alright, honey.” She leans forward like she’s telling a secret. “You know, I’m glad she’s back cheerleading. I think she missed it.” Her smile flickers. “But she’s not as happy. Does that make sense? She hasn’t seemed…  _ really _ happy for a couple of weeks now.”

It’s been 12 days.

“Mom!”

Madeline turns at the sound, her smile back in place. “Oh, there she is.”

But Madeline doesn’t meet Kim halfway. And why would she? She doesn’t know that Kim and Trini haven’t spoken two words since that day at the mine. She doesn’t know that they don’t study together anymore. Or work with each other during labs. Or hike the trails Kim calls hers. She doesn’t know. So she stays where she is and Kim comes closer and closer while Trini imagines herself getting further and further away. 

“Mom?” 

Madeline smiles and holds up the bag in her hand. “You forgot this, honey.”

Kim’s face softens just slightly. “Thanks. I was going to practice without it.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I didn’t mind coming.” She brings a heavy hand down on Trini’s shoulder. It feels like she’s pushing her into the ground. “I got a chance to say hi to Trini while I was here.”

Kim barely glances in her direction. “That’s nice.”

Madeline smiles. She misses the cues. Misses the line of Kim’s mouth and the panic in Trini’s eyes. She looks back and forth between them and squeezes Trini’s shoulder lightly. “You should come for dinner one night,” she says cheerfully. “Or our barbecue this weekend! In fact, why don’t you invite all your friends? Amanda, Harper, Kaitlyn. And those boys you introduced me too. Jason and Jack and Bobby, right?”

“Jason, Zack, and Billy,” Kim corrects quietly. 

“Of course. Jason, Zack, and Billy.” Madeline finally lets go of Trini’s shoulder and she nearly sags at the weightlessness it leaves in its wake. “Have them all over. Just not Ty, huh?” She laughs stiltedly at her own joke. 

Kim’s mouth gets impossibly tighter. 

Madeline claps her hands together. “Well, I need to get back to work.” She aims a smile at Trini. “I expect to see you soon. Kimmy could use more friends who aren’t on the squad, you know.” She presses a kiss to the crown of Kim’s head and slips around them, back towards her car, and disappears out of sight. 

The silence feels more suffocating than Madeline’s hand on her shoulder. She grips the straps of her backpack hard enough for her hands to ache, glancing at Kim every time she breathes out. 

“I didn’t-“ Trini stops herself. 

Kim is quiet for a long moment, looking over Trini’s shoulder. “Okay,” she finally says. 

Trini’s feels a spark of anger in her chest that fizzles out just as quickly. She shrugs a shoulder and half-turns before she looks back. “Okay.”

She doesn’t watch Kim walk away. 

-

Trini makes a stop at her locker before English class, trying to find her copy of  _ The Crucible _ in the mess Kim left behind. She must have moved her things out of their shared locker a few days after their fight against Rita. Probably right after Amanda and Harper handed Kim her life back. One day Kim’s light-up pens and pink, sparkly notebooks were there and then they weren’t. Whatever. Trini doesn’t care. More space for her.

She slams the metal door closed and turns, colliding with a body that feels more like a wall.

“Trini!” Billy’s hands grip her arms, holding on too tightly before he quickly lets her go. “I’m sorry. I thought you heard me. I said your name. Actually, I said, ‘Trini, do you have a minute’ and you didn’t respond. I should have known you weren’t listening to me. But you don’t have your headphones on, so you should have heard me. Have you had a hearing test recently? Hearing tests are recommended every 24 to 30 months when you’re an infant, but you’re not- you’re not an infant. You’re very small, but you’re-”

“Billy.”

Billy’s head bobs up and down.

“My hearing is fine,” she assures him. “My head was just, in the clouds.”

Billy looks up. “We’re indoors.”

Trini winces just a little. “No, Billy, I.” She inhales air deep into her lungs. “What’s up?”

Billy looks at her for so long that Trini shifts from one foot to the other, feeling like an ant under a microscope. It’s been 13 days now. 13 days and she’s not really spoken to him since, besides a quick wave at lunch the other day. If that even counts. He had pointed at the empty seat next to him but she pretended not to see him and went to the football field instead, sitting on the cool metal benches as the sun beat against the back of her neck. 

“I thought you were with us now,” he finally says.

Trini looks at the empty hallway. The final bell has already rung and the only people left are the ones who probably won’t make it to class at all. 

“Look around, Billy.” She swallows back something that feels a lot like guilt. “There isn’t an  _ us _ .”

Billy’s hands wind around the straps of his backpack. “But there could be.” He bounces excitedly on the tips of his toes. “We can get the band back together.”

“We’re not.” She looks at him and feels her stomach drop. “ _ God _ , we’re not a band.”

Billy seems to think this over. “Zack would be a good drummer.”

Trini pauses for a moment. “Yeah, he would be.” And then reality sets back in. She can hear Vice Principal Vega’s heeled shoes coming down the hallway. Somewhere around the corner. “But even if we were? A band?”

“A band,” Billy echoes excitedly. 

13 days since she stood in his basement and let him go on and on about his newest invention like they were friends. Like they were going to sit with each other at lunch and hang out after school. “We’d be a one-hit wonder,” she says slowly. “We saved the world, Billy. But we’re not friends.”

Billy frowns. “Yes, we are.”

“Does Jason talk to you?”

Billy frowns a little more. “Yes.”

Of course he does. Of course he will. Jason Scott, leader of the Power Rangers. De facto big brother. Except, he’s back on the football team and he has a new seat in the cafeteria and he probably forgot they have history together, but she didn’t. She hasn’t forgotten.

“Well, he doesn’t talk to me.” She holds up a hand to stop Billy from saying anything. “I’m sorry, Billy. You’re a... you’re a great guy. But we don’t have anything in common besides being Power Rangers.”

Billy steps closer to her, his eyes wide and his hands fluttering anxiously. “We have Rita.” He lowers his voice. “Rita hurt us both.”

Trini tries to ignore the ripple of fear that comes with her name. She says it sometimes at night when she’s feeling bave, power coin in her hand. Like if she can say it out loud and no one comes, there’s no real monster after all. Like if she gets through the night breathing, she’s won.

She wonders if they can feel it. If Billy feels her terror in the middle of the night. If Zack feels her restlessness. If Jason can feel her anger. She wonders if Kim can feel how she just wants to be held, to be safe.

“Rita is dead.” Her voice hardly shakes.

Billy hesitates. “So was I.”

She hasn’t gone down to the docks again. She remembers what it felt like to carry his lifeless body along the slightly swaying wooden walkway. “You’re alive now,” she forces out. “Seize the day, okay? But do it quick, because you’re late for class. I know you don’t like to be late.”

“See?” Billy smiles widely. “You know things about me!”

“Everyone knows that, Billy.”

“But you know other things,” he says. Hope wraps itself around his words. “You know,  _ other _ things.”

He holds out his fist, grinning at her. 

She stares at it before she walks past him, shouldering her backpack a little higher. She looks back before she turns the corner and watches as his arm falls slowly back down to his side. 

She pretends she doesn’t falter. She pretends she doesn’t care. She figures she can skip English this one time. Maybe stop at the nurse and get a pass. See if her mom can come and pick her up and take her home so she doesn’t have to sit in the back of biology and stare at the back of Kim’s head and wonder if Kim took her copy of  _ The Crucible _ by accident.

She ignores the guilt and the acrid taste it leaves in her mouth. When she tells the nurse she isn’t feeling good, it isn’t even really a lie. 

-

Zordon’s voice echoes in dreams that night.  _ Rangers, return _ he says, voice as pixelated as his face. She wakes up in a cold sweat and when the urge comes, the one that calls her to the mine, she follows it out her window and across town. 

When she gets to the cliff edge, Zack’s shadow looms large in the moonlight. Billy is there, too. Jason stumbles up the path behind her, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. Only Kim looks remotely put together, hair back behind her ears and an Angel Grove cheerleading hoodie hanging low over her hands. 

“You felt it too?” Jason asks. 

Trini nods, stretching her neck to look down into the darkness below. 

Zack scratches the back of his head. “Woke me up.”

“I was already up,” Kim offers.

Trini turns back to the group, looking quickly at each of them. “So what are we waiting for?” 

She jumps first. The wind rushes in her ears and the water is ice cold when she lands in it. Her clothes feel heavy when she kicks to the surface to find a lungful of air before she dives down again, searching for the barrier. 

She almost forgot this feeling. The weightlessness of the suspension while she hovered between the pool and the ground below. She lands with a thud and almost misses what it felt like to have Zack rolling beneath her that first time. By the time she stands, Billy is next to her trying to catch his breath, Zack is wiping his face off, Jason is gingerly touching his knee, and Kim is landing in a graceful twist, on her feet and her hair out of her face. 

“You’re back!” Alpha beeps happily around them. It’s almost too easy to get swept up in his excitement as he leads them to Zordon. But Trini holds back, pushing her shaking hands into the pockets of her jacket - yellow, like her hat and the flannel she hung over the back of her desk chair and the pair of socks she balled up and tossed into her laundry basket before she went to bed. 

“Rangers,” Zordon booms. “It’s been too long.”

14 days. 

Jason speaks first. The leader. “What is it? What’s coming?”

Zordon tells then what he knows. A rise of putties somewhere in the mines. Rocks have been shifting and shaking for the last few days. Alpha has been tracking the activity, but it cannot be ignored any longer. 

“So we take care of them and that’s it?”

Zordon looks them over, eyes shifting to each of them critically. Kim is the only one who doesn’t falter under his gaze. Trini feels like he’s looking deep into her soul. She wonders what he sees. 

“You defeated Rita. But that does not mean you’ll be able to stay as strong without training.” He looks at Jason again. “There’s been a disturbance in the morphing grid. The Ranger team has been shifting.”

14 days since Trini has talked to Jason. Zack. 2 days since Kim said  _ okay _ to her in a school parking lot. 1 day since she left Billy standing in a hallway with his arm outstretched.

“We’re fine,” Jason lies. 

Zordon is silent for a moment. “I trust that you’ll stay that way. The fate of the world-“

“Yadda yadda ya.” Zack rolls his eyes. “We get it.”

“There is more coming,” Zordon says impatiently. “Rita was the first, but she will not be the last.”

Kim is the one who steps forward. “Wait, you’re telling me we have to do this again?”

Zordon’s voice booms around them. “You are Power Rangers. You have a duty to the Zeo Crystal until a new team is found worthy.”

Billy bounces beside her. “A new team?”

Alpha zooms around them, pushing them towards the door. “Go,  _ go. _ The putties are growing stronger every minute.”

So they go. Up through the pool and up the rocks. Kim is still the fastest, scaling the rocks easily. Trini is still just a step behind her, cresting the edge of the cliff as Kim steadies herself at the top. Jason is the slowest, wincing slightly in pain as he flexes his knee. 

She knows he took a hit last week in the game. Took a little longer to stand than he did when he took the same hit in his armor.

“Alpha says they’re just over the crest, towards Kim’s house.”

Trini watches Kim’s face carefully. She doesn’t give anything away. She doesn’t look back at Trini either. 

They hover for a moment, uncertainty sparking between them. 

“So we morph?” Trini asks when she can’t stand the silence any longer. 

Jason hesitates. “We should.”

“Can we?” Everyone turns to Billy. “I tried the other day but… it didn’t really work.”

“Me either.” Zack shrugs when they look at him. “I wanted to see what I look like in the mirror.”

Kim huffs. “Well I haven’t tried.”

Zack snorts. “Been too busy?”

Trini’s eyes widen slightly.

Kim glares in Zack’s direction. “Yeah, actually, I have been. We can’t all blow off school, you know.”

“Why not? Afraid to spend time without your  _ friends _ ?”

“Guys.”

“Not  _ now _ , Billy,” they both say at the same time. 

Trini steps closer to Billy without thinking. Angles herself in front of him as Kim and Zack glare in his direction. “Knock it off. Let’s just do this, okay? My mom is gonna kill me if she finds out I’m not in my room.”

Kim’s glare flickers for just a moment. Trini told her, that one time at Krispy Kreme, what her mom can be like. Overbearing with high expectations. Someone who wouldn’t appreciate her being out of bed at 2 AM. But then Kim looks disinterested again and Trini has to look away. 

Jason takes off towards the other side of the mountain, running ahead as they all try to keep up. Kim keeps pace easily, but Trini’s legs don’t quite measure up and she pulls up the rear, keeping the back of Zack’s head in her sights. They skid to a stop as they crest the top of the mountain. The moon filters through the clouds but Trini sees them, just at the base of the rocks. Hulking, dark shapes. 

She tries to morph. She closes her eyes and tries to tap into the grid, but it doesn’t tap back. Trini looks at the rest of them but they’re not giving anything away. 

“So we go?” she asks. 

Jason studies the putties for a moment. “Without our armor…”

“We did it in the pit,” Billy points out. “Armor would be preferable, but if we can’t morph.” He wrings his hands together. “If we can’t morph, then the only option is to go without our armor.”

“So we go,” Trini says again. She doesn’t wait for them, taking off down the mountainside in a slide. She can feel them behind her, but they’re faint. Billy’s apprehension. Jason’s focus. Zack’s excitement. 

Kim’s nervousness. 

She feels that the most. It settles in the pit of her stomach but it doesn’t slow her down. She slides to a stop in front of the putties, barely getting a moment to steady herself before they attack. 

Jason goes high and Zack goes low, demolishing the first one. Another barrels down on Billy and he dances away, striking forward when it lunges. Trini sets her feet, feeling something up against her back. She turns, hair in her face before she seems Kim, mirroring her stance. Something flashes in Kim’s eyes and she nods, just once, before she turns back around. 

It’s quick and easy. Her muscles burn with exertion. It feels good. Familiar. Kim is at her back and they’re working together seamlessly like they haven’t been avoiding each other for days. She goes up and Kim goes down. Left and right. She strikes and Kim ducks. Kim lunges and Trini dips. 

Putties crumble around them. 

Trini breathes heavy as the last puttie turns to ash, dusting over her knuckles. Kim is still at her back, panting. But she’s smiling. Trini feels it before she sees it. They’re both heaving, sucking in air, but then Kim laughs and brushes some rock off Trini’s shoulder. Her fingers linger there for a moment, the back of her knuckles against the side of Trini’s neck before her hand slide again and Kim’s fingers are hot against the back of Trini’s neck.

“You have something…”

Trini breathes out through her mouth. “Okay.”

Billy claps loudly and Kim flinches away, her hand dropping to her side. “We did it! We still got it!”

Jason grins widely. “We sure do, Billy.”

Zack laughs, the sound bright in the darkness. 

But Kim is still clenching her fist and half-turned away from Trini and something like dread is building in the center of her chest. Kim feels further away with each passing second now.

“Are we done?” Kim picks at a nail, getting the dirt out from under them. “I’ve got early morning cheer practice and-”

“Whatever,” Trini mutters. Her foot slides a little in the rocks. “My mom is going to kill me if she catches me out of the house, so.”

“My mom and I have come to an agreement, of sorts.” Billy’s brow furrows. “She understands I need my independence. But that might not extend to being up and out of bed at two… two thirty-three in the morning.” He blinks at his watch. “Guys, it’s two thirty-three in the morning.”

Zack’s smile starts to fade. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got plans.”

Billy frowns. “At two-thirty three in the morning?”

“Can you stop saying two thirty-three in the morning?” Trini picks at the bottom of her shirt.

“Now it’s two thirty-four in the-”

“We get it, Billy.” Zack’s voice is sharp. He winces a little, glancing down. “I just have things to do.”

“Me too.”

Trini rolls her eyes at Kim. “We know.”

Kim’s eyes flash in the moonlight. “No, you don’t.”

Trini flinches at the words, trying to fold her arms around herself. No, she doesn’t. But it doesn’t sting any less. “Whatever,” she says again. She kicks at the rocks more purposefully now. “I’m out of here.”

“Trini,” Billy says softly.

She turns on him sharply, rocks spewing out from under her heels. “Billy, the band doesn’t get back together, okay? It doesn’t work like that.”

“What band?” Jason asks.

“So, just…” Trini runs a hand through her hair, wishing she had brought her beanie with her. “Just stop talking about it, okay?”

“I’m going,” Kim says loudly. “Let’s not do this again, okay?”

Trini doesn’t stick around long enough to hear anyone answer. She goes to sleep with the ghost of Kim’s fingers against the side of her neck.

-

When the stall door behind her opens, she’s not expecting Kimberly Hart.

Kimberly, now. Not  _ Kim _ . 

She knows Kim. She laughed with Kim. She went to Krisy Kreme with Kim and ran up a mountain with Kim and survived her first fight in the pit with Kim.

But this is  _ Kimberly _ and Trini doesn’t know what to do with Kimberly.

“My mom asked about you.” Kim’s voice echoes loudly in Trini’s ear over the rush of water in the sink.

Trini turns the faucet to off and pauses, her hands soaking wet. “Okay.”

Kim doesn’t quite meet her eyes in the mirror, looking somewhere over Trini’s shoulder. She pulls at the hem of her cheerleading skirt and Trini follows the fabric as it settles back down against her thigh.

“I told her you were busy this weekend.” Kim’s voice shakes as if she isn’t sure why she’s still talking.

Trini shrugs a shoulder, looking up as Kim’s eyes dart away. “I am.”

“I mean, if she asks,” Kim rushes on.

“Why would she?”

Kim shrugs this time. “I don’t know. She likes you, or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Trini echoes. She picks over her next words as her fingers pick over the sleeves of her jacket and tries for something funny. “She probably just likes that I’m not a cheerleader.”

Kim bristles anyway. “No, you’re not.”

“I don’t want to be.” Trini feels the tips of her ears go red.

“Like you even could.” Kim -  _ Kimberly _ \- scoffs.

Trini swallows carefully, eyes falling to Kim’s thigh again. She remembers sitting next to Kim in the lunchroom, thighs pressed together as Zack did his best impression of Zordon. 

17 days since Rita.

She hasn’t seen Kim since that night at the mines, chest heaving and putties destroyed.

“Sorry,” Kim mumbles, quiet enough that Trini almost doesn’t hear her.

Trini finally meets Kim’s eyes in the mirror. “Okay,” she says.

Kim sighs. “Listen, I-”

But the door swings open and Amanda and Harper come tumbling through it, laughing high through their noses. They immediately grab for Kim, hooking their fingers into her arm and pulling her in.

“Oh my  _ god _ ,” Harper gasps. “You’ll never  _ guess _ what I just heard about that kid. You know, the one who never comes to school. Mac Taylor, or whatever.”

Kim’s eyes dart back to Trini.

“Tommy Oliver says he’s  _ homeless _ and living up near the old gold mine.” Harper practically preens. “That explains why he’s never in school.”

Amanda leans in. “And when he is, he looks like he rolled out of a dumpster.”

Harper smiles and her teeth look sharp in the fluorescent lighting. “Because he lives in one, probably.”

Trini clenches her jaw tight, her fist curling. She could put Amanda through a wall. Slam Harper into the floor.  _ You cannot escalate a fight _ , Zordon told them. But another voice in her head tells her to ignore it. To stand up to them for her-

She stops that train of thought. Zack is her teammate.

Not a friend.

“Guys.” Kim’s voice is sharp. “This is really what you’re wasting your time thinking about?”

Harper’s smile flickers.

“You want to talk about rolling around in the dumpster, let’s talk about Karin suddenly being interested in that freshman.” Kim -  _ Kimberly _ \- rolls her eyes, sighing heavily. “The one with the mohawk? Like, who does that anymore?”

Amanda finally looks at Trini, lifting her eyebrows carefully. “What’re you looking at, Didi?”

_ Do you know my name? _ She asked Kim up on that ledge.

“Trini,” she says. 

Amanda pauses. “What?”

“My name is Trini.” She looks at Kim, holding her eyes. “Not that you’ll remember.”

Kim blinks first.

“Whatever.” Amanda dismisses her, tightening her hold on Kim’s arm. She tugs her step by step out of the bathroom, already going on about the homework their history teacher gave them, even though they have a football game tonight. Harper trails after them, twirling her hair as she clicks away on her phone.

Kim looks back at her one more time, her eyes dark and unreadable.

Trini stays in the bathroom long after the door swings shut behind her.

-

The anger slices through Trini’s gut one night and it’s so intense that she thinks she’s going to be sick. Red rims everything she looks at. It’s visceral, this fury. 

_ Zack _ , she thinks, his name cutting through the fog in her head.

She swore she’d stay away from the mines, but the anger ebbs into aching and there’s something about it that won’t leave her alone. It’s easy enough to slip out of her window and scale the side of her house, landing softly on the ground below. The lights are still on in the living room and she can hear her dad’s snoring through the open window. She won’t be too long, but he’s not going to check on her when he finally wakes up and slinks upstairs to bed.

The mine gate looms in the distance, but she jumps it easily, landing on the other side in a dust cloud. She can feel it still, the anger and the aching, and she follows it up the trails until she stops at the old train car. Zack’s legs swing above her.

Trini climbs the car slowly, settling a few feet away from him. He’s quiet for so long that she just says the first thing that comes to mind. “Did you know constellations need to be signed off on by the International Astronomical Union?”

Zack looks at her out of the corner of his eye. “There’s an International Astronomical Union?”

“Yeah. You can buy stars from them.”

Zack frowns a little, his body twisting towards hers. “The lunch ladies don’t have a union, but the stars do?”

Trini shrugs and leans back on her hands. “Pretty messed up if you ask me.”

“So is the lunch ladies’ idea of meatloaf.”

They go quiet, listening to the sounds of Angel Grove beneath them. Cars hum softly and buses rattle around. If she really concentrates, she can hear the sound of the streetlights. She forgot how nice it is up here. How it makes her feel small in a way that doesn’t suck. She’s a part of something bigger. Something greater.

She’s a Power Ranger.

“The new treatment my mom is on isn’t working,” Zack finally says. He grips the lid of the car, the metal crushing softly under his hand.

“Are there other treatments?”

“None as promising as this one was.” He scrubs a hand over his face, shoulders dropping. It’s been 5 days since the mine but he looks older, somehow. 

They slapped Rita into space only 22 days ago but Trini feels like they’re all older, somehow.

“We can keep trying, but…” Zack sits up a little. “She’s just not making any sense, you know? We can’t stop. If we stop…”

Trini shifts closer to him, her foot tapping against his shin. “Is that what she wants? To stop?”

“That’s what she said. Tonight, when we… And I just got so…”

“Angry,” Trini finishes. “I know.”

Zack’s mouth twitches. “I feel you too, Crazy Girl.”

Trini breathes in deep. Feels the air expand in her lungs before she lets it out. “Do you think they feel it?”

She doesn’t say their names out loud. 

“I think they’re good at pretending they don’t. Jason and Kim, at least.” Zack’s hand comes off the edge of the car and settles in his lap. “It’s weird, right? We saved the world together.”

Trini looks back at Angel Grove again and imagines its people, asleep in their beds. “And they’ll never know.”

“We will.” Zack gives her a small smile. “We’ll know what we did.”

“But we won’t ever talk about it.” She ignores him staring at her. “It means we’d have to talk to each other.”

Zack shrugs. “Who would want to talk to us?” He kicks his legs back and they echo against the car. “We’re totally the losers of the group.”

“Don’t lump me in with you, weirdo.”

Zack smiles a little wider now. “Hate to break it to you, kid. But we are. You know they were in detention longer than us. I bet they had secret meetings without us.”

Trini snorts. “They’re not now.” She shakes her head a little. She stumbles over her words a little. “Maybe Billy and Jason, though. I don’t know.”

“ _ Definitely _ not Kim.”

“Kimberly,” Trini corrects him. It makes her heart pound in her chest. “Kim… We knew Kim. I don’t know whoever she is now.”

She thinks of Kim in the mine, touching the side of her neck. She thinks of Kim in the bathroom, saying she’s sorry. She thinks of Kim in mid-air, grinning at her from her Zord. She thinks of Kim in biology a year ago,  _ Kimberly _ , but quieter.

Zack stares at her for a long minute. “Fine. Kimberly. She’s too busy with the cheerleaders to bother with us.”

She thinks of Kimberly and  _ Mac Taylor _ and how Kim didn’t say anything when Amanda and Harper were making fun of Zack. Not really. She tries to find Kim and she can’t. 

She tries to ignore how it stings somewhere in her chest.

“Being with you guys was good for me.” Zack kicks out against Trini’s foot. “Just like being with us was good for you.”

“We’re not friends,” Trini reminds him. “We’re Power Rangers.”

“Yeah,” Zack breathes. “But we could be friends if you wanted. Black and Yellow, right?”

Trini blinks at him.

“Don’t you know who Wiz Khalifa is?” Zack tuts at her. “We’ll have to change that.”

“How about, you don’t educate me on music and I’ll be your friend.”

Zack lays back, his arms under his head as he looks up at the stars. She follows, shifting until she’s comfortable and his elbow is pressed against hers.

“Do you know a lot of the constellations?”

Trini looks up and finds Grus nestled there in the darkness. “Yeah. My-.” She stops herself and tries not to think about Jamie Hudson, stuck living in a town Trini left behind. “My friend taught me.”

Zack points up, somewhere near Ursa Minor. “Tell me about that one.”

She tells him about the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper and when he falls asleep while he’s asking questions about Aquila, she covers him with his coat and tries to make it home before the sun comes up. 

So, she has one friend. 

-

“Here comes Big Brother,” Zack murmurs into Trini’s ear as he steers her into the cafeteria. She tries pushing her weight against him, to eat outside on the bleachers, but he’s taller and even though she  _ can _ shift him, she shouldn’t when the hallway is this crowded.

Zordon’s a pain in the ass, but he’s not wrong. No one can know who they are.

“Zack, Trini.” Jason sounds so formal, his varsity jacket hanging open. It’s game night and he’s wearing his uniform under it, the red numbers bright against the white of the shirt.

“Jason.” Zack mimics his tone, standing up taller. His hand tightens just a little on Trini’s shoulder. 

Jason looks around the cafeteria quickly. Trini looks too, scanning the tables until she finds Kim. Amanda and Harper flank her sides, laughing at something another football player is saying. Kim is on her phone, tapping away at the screen. She pauses and looks up, finding Trini’s eyes easily. Something in Trini says to look away, to pretend she wasn’t trying to find Kim in the sea of students filling the cafeteria to the brim. 

But she doesn’t. She keeps looking and Kim keeps looking back.

Then she feels it. Fear and something else slow and rolling in a way that feels like the first time she saw Jamie Hudson across the library by the Magic Treehouse display rack. It makes her pause and she frowns at it. It almost feels like-

“You’re avoiding us.”

Trini’s head snaps around and that feeling in the pit of her stomach cuts away. Zack’s arm falls off her shoulders. “Avoiding who?” she asks.

Jason sighs. “Trini.”

She bristles and anger bubbles to the surface. “Don’t ‘Trini’ me like you know me.”

He steps forward, his hands out in front of him. “I  _ do _ know you.”

“You know what you think you want to know.” She takes a step back and looks to the left, but Kim is looking away again. 

“Trini, you need to give us a chance.”

“And what, Quarterback? We’re-” She looks around and lowers her voice. “We’re Power Rangers, not friends.”

She’s not sure how many times she has to say it before it sticks.

She straightens up again. “Not like you care, though. Where have you been, huh?”

It’s been 27 days since they slapped Rita into space and he hasn’t spoken to before now except for the night in the mines.

“Because you’re not blowing up my phone every day.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and scrolls through it until she finds the group she hasn’t quite deleted yet and holds it up. It’s been quiet. Empty. No messages except her own to the rest of them, the night Rita pressed her into a wall and left a crack the size of her in the plaster. “Nothing.”

“Nada,” Zack echoes. 

Jason looks down.

“That’s what I thought.” She sighs, the fight suddenly draining out of her. She can feel  _ Kim _ again in the pit of her stomach. Something aching and raw. “Dude, it’s fine. We don’t have to do this, you know? It’s the  _ Breakfast Club _ , right? The credits roll and they don’t actually stay friends. You go back to the wrestling team and Kim goes back to the popular girls and Billy goes back to blowing up lockers.”

“I’m totally Judd Nelson.” Zack puffs out his chest.

“You are,” Trini agrees.

Jason doesn’t say anything.

Trini sighs. “So don’t, like, trip over yourself or anything, okay? We’ll go about our business, you go about yours, and we’ll just figure out the rest later.”

She doesn’t wait to hear him say anything back. Zack grabs at her shoulder again and tugs her out of the cafeteria, heading towards the bleachers instead. She can feel Kim’s eyes on her and the aching twists tight in her stomach until she feels a little nauseous.

“Can you feel that?” she asks Zack.

Zack frowns at her. “Feel what?”

Trini doesn’t look back over her shoulder, though she wants to. “Nothing,” she lies. “Forget about it.”

-

This time when she wakes up, she’s sweating through the mattress and she can’t breathe.

_ Rita. Rita is _ -

Not here. Rita isn’t here. But the panic doesn’t go away and her chest feels too tight. She presses a hand against it, to try and ease some of the pressure, but it doesn’t stick when she pulls her hand away. She tries to tap into the grid but it sputters and doesn’t connect. She stands, staggering into the wall and drops to her knees.

It’s not Zack. Not Jason or Billy. It feels bigger than them.

It’s Kim. 

She tries to fight it off but she can’t. When she goes out the window, she trips and hits the last branch on the tree, falling to her knees before she rights herself. The other side of the mountain feels too far away, so she yanks off the handle of the side door on the garage, wincing when she thinks about how she’ll explain this to her parents, and steals her brother’s bike.

The wind whips through her hair and the back of her neck sweats. Her t-shirt sticks to her ribs as she takes corner after corner, racing down the long stretches of road that leads to Kim’s house. She doesn’t care about the bike, dropping it into the driveway, the tire still spinning.

Kim’s bedroom is on the second floor and it would be easy to just jump up to it. One leap and she’ll be on the roof. But she pauses for just a moment. Why should she go up there? The panic is starting to ebb away in her chest. Kim must be settling down. She doesn’t need Trini.

They’re not friends.

But she takes a deep breath and pushes off the ground, landing as lightly as she can just outside of Kim’s window. She can see her power coin glowing on her desk, flickering each time Kim’s chest heaves as she tries to suck in some air. She taps lightly and winces when Kim flinches. She mouth  _ sorry _ through the glass and waits. 

Kim stares at her, unblinking before she gets up and comes closer to the window. She hesitates at it, her fingers curling around the frame before she finally takes a deep breath and slides it up.

Trini climbs through one leg at a time, hardly stumbling when she stands on two legs. She looks around Kim’s room slowly, taking in the pink…  _ everything _ . There are pictures littering the mirror in the corner and dirty laundry on the floor and Kim’s power coin, right there on the edge of the desk for anyone to see.

“I felt you.” The words sound clunky in her mouth.

Kim tips her head to one side. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Trini echoes. She wets her lips. “Good talk.” 

This was a stupid idea. She should just go home and put the bike back in the garage and try and buy a new door handle before her dad sees the damage she did. Her foot pivots in the carpet and she turns her shoulders towards the window.

“I was on fire.”

She stops, looking back at Kim. “Okay.”

“I was-” Kim sighs. “I was in my Zord and I couldn’t breathe and there was fire right outside my windshield.”

Trini doesn’t say anything, but she pivots on the carpet again, stopping until she’s facing Kim again.

Kim pushes her hair out of her eyes. “It’s not exactly like I can tell anyone else, you know? I can’t just say, ‘oh, hey, guess what? I’m a Power Ranger and a giant monster made of gold almost crushed me to death’, right?”

“They’d probably send you to therapy.” Trini shrugs. “Or they’d believe you. The people of Angel Grove aren’t as stupid as they all seem to be.”

Kim sits heavily on the edge of the bed. Her hair slips forward into her eyes and she pushes it back again, tucking it behind her ears. “You felt me?”

Trini sinks to the floor, sitting cross-legged on the carpet and running her fingers through it. She wishes she had her beanie on. Wishes she was wearing anything but an old Longhorns t-shirt and the pair of sweats with the hole at the knee. Kim stares at her and Trini tries to figure out a way to answer her that doesn’t make her sound as ridiculous as she feels.

“Ranger connection, and shit.” She winces even before the words are out of her mouth.

Kim scoffs. “And shit.”

“You know what I mean.” Trini picks a bead out of the carpet and rolls it between her fingers. “We can all feel each other. Like, when Zack eats too many burritos or when Jason takes a hit.”

“When Billy gets another A+ on a project.” Kim nods. “I feel it too.” She digs her bare feet into the carpet near Trini’s hand. “I feel  _ you _ , too. I feel-” Kim stops herself.

The words make her flinch. She knows Kim feels her. She felt her anger at the schoolwide assembly. She felt Kim’s panic in the cafeteria. They feel each other. Big deal.  _ Except it is _ , something inside of her say.

“If it’s indigestion, that’s usually Zack.”

Kim smiles humorlessly. “I feel when you dream about Rita.”

It’s been 30 days and she still flinches when Rita’s name comes out of someone else’s mouth. 

She turns her shoulders in and pulls her mouth into a hard line. “Yeah, well-”

“Don’t,” Kim says quickly. “I just meant- I feel you, that’s all.”

Trini feels her shoulder drop and she breathes out. “Some kind of weird side effect, or whatever.”

The knot in her chest loosens. She can see the flush across Kim’s chest, just under the collar of her t-shirt, disappear. Kim’s breathing is softer now. She’s settling, calming, and Trini can feel that take the place of the panic that was there before.

“Do you think we’ll always feel it?” Kim asks. She slides off the edge of the bed, her back pressed against the side of it as she settles into the carpet. Her knees brush Trini’s. She starts reaching for the line of skin just below the hem of Kim’s pink and white shorts, but she pulls her hand back and buries it under her thigh.

“Maybe. Maybe it’ll-” Trini shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe it’ll fade.”

They’re not friends.

Kim picks at the carpet and comes up with another bead. “I broke a bracelet a few weeks ago. Super strength, you know?”

Trini thinks of the door handle she left dangling from its socket. “Yeah, totally.” She shifts forward and her knee bumps Kim’s this time. The hole in her sweats catches on the hem of Kim’s shorts and there’s a moment where Trini thinks they’re going to weave together and she’ll be tied to Kim for the rest of her life. But she rocks back and its like they never touched at all. Trini keeps picking at the carpet. More beads. She collects them in the center of her palm, pink and yellow mixing together. She thinks about this being around Kim’s wrist, a delicate thread against the pulse there. She wonders if Kim can feel the rush in her stomach the way Trini can. Something like  _ want _ builds and she exhales slowly, willing it away.

“I know Amanda and Harper can be terrible.” Kim’s voice cuts through the static in Trini’s head. 

Trini looks up, fingers dropping the bead she was holding. “What?”

Kim bites down on her bottom lip. “What they said, about Zack. I know they can be like that, but-”

“But you didn’t stop them.” The want twists into sudden fury. She sees Kim in that bathroom, Harper and Amanda hanging off her and that dark, dark look in her eyes. “You just stood there and let them make fun of him.” Her breathing picks up. “Calling him homeless? Saying he sleeps in a dumpster? When you know what…  _ Those _ are your friends, Kim? You’re making excuses for  _ them _ when-”

Kim presses a hand to her chest. “Ouch,” she breathes. “Can you just, like, calm down?”

Trini stops herself, frowning. “You can… You can feel that?”

Kim nods, swallowing something back. “It’s like,  _ god _ . Do you get this angry all the time?”

“No.” Trini thinks about it. “Maybe.”

Kim goes quiet and Trini counts thirty heartbeats before Kim opens her mouth again. “I talked to them. After that. They won’t say anything about him again.”

Trini scoffs. “They’ll just pick on someone else next.” She pauses. “Maybe that freshman with the mohawk.”

Kim flinches just a little.

“Why’re you even friends with them, when you could be friends with-”  _ With me _ , she thinks. She closes her mouth instead.

“You don’t understand.”

Kim looks down and pulls the hem of her shorts over the tops of her knees, stretching the fabric out. Trini inhales sharply. The anger dissipates and the want comes back. The want to  _ what _ , Trini isn’t sure. That’s a lie. She wants to hold Kim. To take her hand and lace their fingers together. To push her hair back behind her ears. To kneel forward and-

“I have my life back,” Kim whispers.

Trini spreads her fingers into the carpet and clenches her hand into a fist, tugging at the fibers until she hears some of them pull. She thinks of Madeline Hart telling her that Kim doesn’t look as happy as she did before. She thinks of Kim’s eyes in the bathroom. “Is that the life you want?”

Kim doesn’t say anything. 

“Because the Kim  _ I _ knew? She said she gave that life up. She said she gave those friends up. And she seemed... happier for it.”

Trini stares at the long line of Kim’s neck and the sharp line of her jaw. She tries to picture the Kim she knew and she’s there, if Trini squints. If she tips her head just so, she can see Kim across the table at Krispy Kreme, laughing as they fight over the last piece of donut. They had been so close to morphing then. Trini could feel it. There was hope in her chest and she felt weightless and her arm tingled as Kim smiled at her. She can see Kim in the pit, tossing rocks over Zack’s head to the makeshift target they carved into the wall. She can see Kim leaning in, their shoulders pressed together and their foreheads brushing.

To kneel forward and kiss Kim. That’s what she wants.

“You don’t-” Kim starts. 

“Listen,” she says at the same time, her voice too loud in the quiet space. She pushes off the floor, dusting her hands off on her sweatpants. “You had a nightmare. I just came to see if you needed anything, but you don’t, so.”

Kim stands too. “Trini, wait.”

But there’s a charge in the air that Trini feels in her bones. Like she’s already exposed too much sitting here and talking to Kim like she even knows who Kim is. Like Kim knows that Trini wants to reach over and-

“You can stay.” Kim takes a step back, the back of her knees against the bed. “Like, for a little bit. It’s late.”

“It’s late,” Trini echoes. She can feel the windowsill behind her and she grapples for it, pretending not to flinch when a corner of the wood splinters under her hands. “You… We’re not friends, Kim. You don’t need me here. I shouldn’t have come. Call...” She looks around wildly at the pictures on Kim’s mirror, finding her in a selfie with Amanda and Harper. “Call one of them, okay?”

“Trini,” Kim tries.

Trini stumbles back out of the window, sliding down the slanted roof of Kim’s house until her feet hit the grass. She picks up her brother’s bike and gets on it slowly, pretending like she can’t feel Kim’s eyes on her back as she pedals down the driveway and then the 

Kim can’t apologize for what she’s done, right? For ignoring them. For making fun of Zack. For pretending like being a Power Ranger is the worst thing that has ever happened to her. She pedals faster. They can’t just forget the past 30 days where they didn’t speak and Kim ignored her in biology and ignored her in the hallways and ignored her in detention. They can’t forget that they saved the world together and then walked away like they were some makeshift dodgeball team thrown together for one tournament round.

Zack is her friend, but Jason isn’t. Billy isn’t.

Kim isn’t her friend.

But now she’s not sure she wants to be Kim’s friend either.

-

Zack throws a rock up at the sky and closes one eye, catching it in his hand.

“You’re going to lose an eye.” Trini kicks at him lazily.

Zack ignores her and catches the next rock with his jaw, grunting at the pain. He sits up, squinting as he takes in the football field in front of them. School ended about twenty minutes ago and the field is starting to fill up. The football team is stretching in one corner. The cross country team is starting their laps. The cheerleaders are setting up their formation. Trini finds Kim, one leg on the bench she’s using as a post, leaning forward over her knee. She looks away quickly and hopes the flare in her chest doesn’t echo in Kim’s.

She spent all weekend in her room, staring at the ceiling and trying to convince herself to take down the constellations on the ceiling. But the longer she stared at them, the more reasons she’s found to keep them up. 

Kim was almost all of the reasons.

She hasn’t felt like this before.  _ Jamie _ , she reminds herself. This feels like Jamie, but it also feels like  _ more _ . She didn’t feel Jamie in the pit of her stomach the way she feels Kim. She didn’t lie awake at night staring at the shapes on her ceiling and imagining Jamie’s face, but she can see Kim’s face there in the popcorn ceiling. She wanted to be around Jamie, but she wants to be  _ with _ Kim.

She wants and she wants and she hopes Kim can’t feel  _ that _ .

“Told you.”

“Shut up.” He picks up his juice box and pushes at her shoulder. She nearly goes sideways. “Why’re we here again.”

Trini shrugs, even as her eyes stray across the field to Kim. “It’s sunny out?” 

Zack snorts. “Sure. Sun.”

Trini looks at her, frowning. “What?”

“What?”

“Do you have something to say?” Trini leans back on her hands, her beanie slumping down one side of her face for a moment before she pushes it back.

“We’re here because you want to stare at Amanda Clark’s ass. I’m sure of it.” Zack preens a little. 

But Zack doesn’t know the things Amanda said about him. “Sure.” She rolls her eyes. “I can’t get enough of it.”

Zack gags. “Have some taste, woman.”

Trini ignores him. “What about you? Why’d you come out here with me?”

“Because you’re here.”

Trini’s heart pounds in her chest at his words. He’s not looking at her but she knows he’s watching out of the corner of his eyes, waiting to see what she does. But she just doesn’t know  _ what _ to do. It’s never been this easy before, to be around someone. 

He says it like it doesn’t mean anything.

It means everything.

“Whatever.” She kicks out at him again but there’s no strength behind it.

Something ripples through her, settling into the pit of her stomach. It’s not her own feelings. She knows the difference. She can work it out between them. Zack roils. Jason simmers. Billy just feels and feels and  _ feels _ . But Kim is different. Kim is a low pulse that feels like it’s always there. Like it’s just under the surface of her skin, if she picks enough of herself away.

This is Kim, now. 

She looks up and Kim is standing, leg dropped down, and she’s staring out across the field. Trini knows Kim is looking at her and she thinks that maybe Kim takes a step closer towards. Then two and three and ten steps. Her chest tightens but that’s not her either. That’s Kim.

Trini opens her mouth to say something and-

Jason cuts Kim off, a football under his arm. 

“Well, well.” Zack nudges her. “Aren’t they cozy?”

It’s been 42 days since Rita.

It’s been 12 days since she was sitting on the floor in Kim’s bedroom, picking yellow and pink beans from the carpet.

Trini rolls her eyes.

“It’s the quintessential high school romance, right? Dreamy quarterback, hot cheerleader.” Zack frowns at her blank look. “What?”

Trini shakes her head. “I don’t know how to unpack that. Did you just use the word ‘quintessential’ in a sentence?”

Zack slaps a hand over his chest. “I’m cultured.”

“You’re drinking apple juice out of a little carton right now.”

Zack shrugs and sucks on the straw, finishing the juice. “It tastes delicious.”

Across the field, Jason tosses a football into the air casually and catches it with one hand, cradling it against his chest. Kim looks at him and smiles.

Something aches in her stomach. This time, it’s her.

“Do you think she’s into him?” she hears herself asking.

Zack squints across the field, forehead wrinkled in concentration. She resists the urge to reach over and poke him. “I don’t know. They look like they’ve kissed, though, right?”

She coughs on the air in her lungs. “What?”

“Oh, come on.” Zack throws an arm out at them. “They’ve totally played tonsil hockey. They’re way too comfortable around each other.” They both watch Kim lean in and press a hand to Jason’s chest for a beat. Jason laughs back and drops a heavy arm across Kim’s shoulders. “See?”

Trini frowns. “You do that to me.”

“We could play tonsil hockey, too.” Zack winks at her. “Just say the word, Crazy Girl.”

Trini gags and elbows him hard in the side. “I don’t want to go anywhere near your tonsils.”

Zack heaves a heavy sigh, still smirking. “I’ll die an unhappy man.”

Trini grabs the front of his shirt and twists it in her first. “Why wait?” She shoves him and he laughs as he starts to teeter off the edge of the bench he’s sitting on. He reaches around her other arm and picks at the top of her beanie, lifting it off her head. He flicks his wrist and it sails up over them onto another row. She growls and swings at him but he catches her arm and laughs, tucking it against her side as he gets her into a headlock. He laughs as he grips him around the waist and tries to leverage herself out of the hold.

She feels a flare of anger wash over her, but by the time she gets out of Zack’s headlock, Jason is back on the field throwing a pass and Kim is with the cheerleaders, back to the bleachers.

-

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Kim says quietly. She’s standing at the sink, looking at Trini in the reflection of the mirror. Trini had frozen in place when she walked in and found Kim there at the sink, wiping at the mascara under eyes. Kim had stared back at her for a long minute before she spoke.

“In bathrooms?”

Kim frowns. “Well, yeah.”

Trini feels her defenses going up. “I didn’t know you had the monopoly on bathrooms. Sorry, Your Highness, next time I’ll just-”

“Trini.” Kim turns, leaning back against the sink. “I was kidding.”

Embarrassment rushes through her body. “Okay,” she mutters.

“Okay.”

Trini goes to pick at her fingernails and immediately stops, curling her hands around the straps of her backpack instead. The silence feels heavy, weighed down by something Trini isn’t sure she could ever say.

Kim inhales, the sound sharp against the tiled bathroom. “No Zack today?”

“He’s got a thing with his mom.” Trini looks up and looks away just as quickly. “Not that it matters to you.”

“What if it does?”

Trini snorts. “Sure it does. He sleeps in a dumpster, right? That’s how much you care about him.”

Kim pushes off the sink and takes a step closer. “I didn’t say that,  _ Harper _ said-”

“And you didn’t stop them,” Trini fires back. 

“I did!” Kim breathes out heavily, the hair around her face fluttering. 

Trini sags a little. “Whatever.”

Kim doesn’t come closer, but she doesn’t move away, either. There’s that feeling again in the pit of Trini’s stomach. It makes her heart pound in her chest and her palms get sweaty. 

She’s not sure who she’s feeling anymore.

“Whatever,” she says again, in a whisper. “We’re not friends, so what do we care what you think.”

Kim’s hand lifts into the air and hovers above Trini’s shoulder. “You have something…”

It’s been 53 days since they saved Angel Grove and 23 days since Kim’s bedroom. She’s spent every single one of those days avoiding Kim in biology and in the cafeteria and all-school pep rallies. She’s spent every single one of them pushing whatever this feeling is into the furthest part of her body and the darkness, quietest corner of her mind, trying to ignore it.

She’s spent every single night trying not to dream about Kim. 

Kim’s hand drops back to her side. “Do you feel that?” she whispers.

Trini breathes in slowly and finds it. It’s nervousness and anticipation. Her heart revs inside her chest. “Feel what?”

Kim’s face is so close. She lifts her hand again, pressing it just above Trini’s heart. “That,” she breathes.

The bathroom door kicks open and Ty Fleming stumbles in, arms slung low around the waist of a freshman cheerleader. 

Kim jumps back, colliding with the sink.

Ty’s eyes widen and he peels his hands off the girl’s waist. “Shit. Kim. I didn’t- I forgot this was-”

Trini recovers first, her hands tightening on the straps of her backpack. “It’s a  _ girl’s bathroom _ , you perv.”

Ty stumbles, the girl swaying with him. “I thought that no one would be in here.”

Anger. Trini can handle anger. It suffocates the fear she knows Kim is feeling, the same fear that bubbles in her chest. “Well, obviously, you’re wrong. So get. Out.”

Ty sneers at her. “Whatever.” He looks steadier now. He straightens up and pulls the girl into his side. She’s staring at Kim, eyes wide. “You hang out with that Zack Taylor kid, right? He’s a freak, isn’t he? I hear he lives in a dumpster with his dirtbag parents”

Trini’s jaw twitches. “Say that to my face.”

“Maybe if you had a stepladder, I would.”

Trini jerks forward, one arm pulling back. Kim catches it when she swings forward, putting herself between Trini and Ty. “No,” she says quietly.

_ You must not escalate a fight _ , Zordon had said.

“No,” Kim says again. She curls her hand over Trini’s, peeling back her fingers slowly and carefully. “Trini, don’t.”

Ty scoffs behind Kim’s back. “Like she could do anything.”

Trini jerks but Kim leans forward, pushing Trini back. “He’s not worth it.” She looks back over her shoulder, eyes blazing. “Ty, get  _ out _ of here before I call Coach Rose and tell her you’re in the girl’s room trying to look under the stalls.”

Ty shrugs like it’s no big deal and pulls open the door, holding it open for the girl to slip under his arm. 

“And Mandi?” Kim calls. The girl freezes and turns, eyes will wide. “Wear your running sneakers today because the only thing you’re doing is running laps.”

The door swings closed and the only thing Trini can hear is the sound of her blood rushing in her ears and Kim’s quiet breathing in the spaces between. Her chest heaves and her ears are burning and she hates,  _ hates _ , him. She hates that he thinks he can talk about Zack that way. About her  _ friend _ that way. 

Kim whispers her name softly and pushes some of Trini’s hair out of her face. “You okay?”

“I hate him,” Trini pants. “I hate stupid football players and stupid cheerleaders and I hate-” She takes a deep breath.

Kim gives her a humorless smile. “You hate me. And Jason.”

Trini flexes her hand in Kim’s. “We’re not friends.”

She keeps saying that. Like if she says it enough, it’ll really be true. Like she’s waiting for Kim to prove her wrong. 

“I won’t let them talk about Zack like that,” Kim promises. “He’s not a freak.” Kim pauses. “You’re not a freak, either.” Kim presses in closer. If she moved any closer they’d be forehead to forehead. The anger starts to ebb away and that fear comes back in its place. “I won’t let them talk about you that way.”

“We’re not friends,” Trini exhales.

Kim smoothes her fingers over Trini’s, finally letting go of Trini’s hand and taking a step back. She gives her another smile, a real one this time. “Not yet,” she says simply. “But we’re going to be.”

She slips out of the bathroom quietly.

The fear in Trini’s stomach turns into resolution and she finds it hard to breathe. 

-

Trini comes to a stop in the hallway, just a little ways from her locker. Billy is standing at the corner, talking animatedly to Mr. Dwyer, the AP calc teacher. She watches him bounce on the tips of his toes and waves his arms around and affection blooms in her chest.

They came together for Billy. Because of Billy. Without Billy, they’d be nothing. He was their catalyst. Twice. 

She shifts her weight back and forth on the tips of her toes. She hasn’t talked to him since that night in the mines. 48 days ago. 

62 days since they slapped Rita into space. 

She needs to stop keeping track.

Billy waves goodbye to Mr. Dwyer and looks around the hallway, meeting her eyes.

The excitement fizzles a little. Trini feels it dying.

“Hey, Billy,” she calls out. 

He perks up a little, still hesitant. He slides a little towards her, hands working over the straps of his backpack before they flutter in front of him. “Hey, Trini.”

“Hey.”

Billy smiles a little. “You said that already.”

Trini knows Billy is the glue. He holds them together. Bridges the gap between the outcasts and the popular kids. He’s the one they trusted first. When it comes down to it, she’s sure he’s the one who saved the world.

She tries for casual. “How’s your mom?”

“Oh, well.” He inhales sharply. “She got a new moisturizer and it smells like lilies even though it says lavender. I told her that’s a  _ huge _ difference but she says sometimes it’s not about the packaging, it’s what on the inside.  _ I _ said, the packaging has to match-”

Trini leans towards him. “So, good?”

He exhales heavily. “Yes. Good. Thank you.” He closes his mouth into a thin line and opens it again. “My mom said your mom is kind of terrifying.”

Trini snorts. “My mom  _ is _ terrifying.”

“Maybe she just loves you,” he offers.

Trini shrugs. “Maybe she does.” She can hear people in the hallways, ducking out of class to go to the bathroom or to sneak down to the vending machine on the bottom floor. “Maybe she needs to show it better.”

“I was…” Billy lowers his voice. “I was talking to Alpha. We’re working on a teleportation device so we can get in and out of the spaceship without going through the pool.”

“Oh.” Trini shifts her weight, uncomfortable. “You’re still going to the ship?”

Billy shrugs a should casually. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to go. And my mom, she. Well, she kind of got used to me having friends and I don’t want her to know we’re not talking anymore.”

“But you and Jason talk, right?”

“Oh, sure.” Billy grins for a minute before his smile flickers. “But he’s got football, so he can’t come over anymore. We’re having a movie night this weekend. I get to pick!”

The affection is back, burning warm in the pit of her stomach. “That’s great, Billy.”

He looks at her and looks away. “You could come. We have snacks. Oh! I’ll even get Red Vines.”

Trini winces a little. The thought of spending time with Billy and Jason feels like too much. They got stuck in a four-person group project in history and he spoke to her without really  _ speaking _ to her. Everything he said came through Trent Holliday, one of the kids on his team.

She hasn’t spoken to Jason in since that day in the cafeteria when he cornered her and Zack and tried to play the Dad routine. Maybe he finally took the hint. “I don’t think so.”

Billy’s smile wilts completely. He forces it back on. “You don’t have to.”

“But…” Trini scuffs one foot against the floor. “Maybe you and I could hang out? And Zack?”

Billy’s smile lights up again. “Yes! We can do whatever you want. We can hang out at the mine. At night! I can get my mom to buy me beer. Well, she won’t buy it  _ for _ me, but I can convince her to-”

“Billy.” Trini reaches out, her hand hovering over his elbow before she pulls it away. “We don’t have to drink beer. We can just hang out.”

“We can’t be the Three Musketeers.” Billy almost looks sorry. “Jason and Kim and I were them before we met you and Zack. But we can be something else. There are a lot of famous groups of three. The Powerpuff Girls. Or Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Or Alvin and the Chipmunks.”

“The Three Stooges?” she offers.

Billy frowns. “Jason didn’t tell me about them.”

“It’s okay,” she assures him. “We can just be Billy and Zack and Trini.”

“I like that. Billy and Zack and Trini.” He beams. “When do you want to hang out. I can’t do after school today because I have my robotics team meeting. And I can’t do tomorrow night. It’s games night at home with my mom. She wants to play Scrabble but I always beat her, so I said we should play a game better suited to her skillset.”

She waits until he takes a breath before she jumps in. “That’s okay. My mom doesn’t like it when I’m out too late on a school night. Maybe Friday. If you’re not going to the football game.”

“I’m not.” He smiles. “Friday night. I’ll bring Red Vines. Or.” His eyes widen. “Do you like Twizzlers?”

Trini laughs and shoulders him gently as she heads back towards class.

-

Zordon calls to her again.  _ To the mines, Rangers. Come, now. _

She’s still sleepy when she reaches the crest of the hill. Billy is sitting on the cliff’s edge with his legs hanging out over the water below. He hands her a few Red Vines. “Sorry I haven’t finished the teleportation devices yet. We’re going to get wet.”

She stifles a yawn and shrugs. “It’s fine. Saves me from taking a shower tomorrow morning, I guess.”

“Is that what I smell?” Zack pulls her beanie down over her eyes from behind. She swings out blindly but misses him. “I knew it was something.”

“Shut up,” she grumbles. She finally pushes her beanie back and growls at him. He shimmies his shoulders back.

“So, what’re we waiting for?” Zack looks between the three of them. “Just missing our illustrious leader and the princess?”

Kim clears her throat and steps into the single stream of moonlight coming out from behind the clouds.

That feeling is back. The one that says Trini should just go over there and pull Kim in by the sleeves of her oversized cheer sweatshirt and-

“I’m here.” Jason throws a hand up in greeting. “You guys waited.” He sounds surprised.

“And now you’re here, so…” Zack grabs Trini by the arm and pulls her backwards a few steps. “First one to the bottom gets to be my best friend forever!” He throws himself off the cliff edge, still holding on tightly to Trini’s jacket. She screams and he laughs wildly, the wind swallowing up the noise just as they plunge into the icy water.

She comes up for air and kicks him in the shin.

The others follow slowly but they’re all together by the time they get in front of Zordon, wringing out their clothes and pushing back their wet hair. She keeps her eyes on Zack or the ground. There’s something tense in the air around them. She wonders if Billy feels it too. If Zack catches it. If Jason cares enough to acknowledge it. She wonders if Kim notices and she ignores it or if she doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

Mostly, she just feels apprehensive. Like something is coming and she doesn’t know what it is, but she’s not going to like it.

“You have not been working as a team,” Zordon booms.

It’s been 71 days since they worked together as a team to rid the world of Rita.

Jason angles himself forward. The leader. “Zordon, we-”

“Silence!”

Trini staggers back a step. It sends Kim off balance and she sways into Trini’s side.

“The Power Rangers are a  _ team _ . If you do not work as one unit, how can you expect to beat new threats?” Zordon’s face zooms from one end of the screen to the other. 

Zack raises his hand. “About that. Do we really have to keep doing this team thing? Can’t we all go be our own heroes? Or duos, amirite?” He holds out his fist to Trini.

She rolls her eyes and ignores him. Kim is still leaning into her and she’s trying to focus on not breathing too deeply.

Zordon eyes them all, disappointed. “The Ranger bond is getting weaker. I had hoped…”

Trini feels Kim shift away from her and she pulls her arms across her chest instead, trying her best to look disinterested. 

“Rita was not the last,” Zordon repeats. He had said it, earlier. And she had dismissed him then. But he’s saying it again and she’s starting to think that maybe he’s not lying. Maybe there is more. Maybe they’re going to be stuck with these ties to each other for the rest of her life. She’s going to have these guys in her phone for forever.

Zack and Billy is one thing. Talking to Jason past high school seems ridiculous. Talking to Kim feels like too much and not enough all at the same time.

Something like longing ripples through her and Kim’s head snaps up. 

“I failed my team. Jason, you must not fail yours.” Zordon comes to stop in front of Jason. “There will be more,” he promises. “And you must be ready.”

“We’re teenagers.” Everyone turns to look at her. She shifts uncomfortably on her feet but holds her chin high in the air. “Yeah, I said it. We’re teenagers. We need to be worried about getting into college. And getting part-time jobs. Or going out on dates with, with-”

“Amanda Clark,” Zack offers. He grins at her when she glares at him.

“Amanda Clark?” Kim asks. She frowns. “You like  _ Amanda Clark _ ?”

“Yes,” Zack says at the same time Trini says, “no.”

Kim pulls her arms around her stomach makes a small step closer to Jason. 

Trini huffs. “Listen. What I’m saying is that we’re  _ kids _ . We beat Rita. Can’t we just be done?”

“A Power Ranger’s job is never done.” Zordon comes to a stop in front of her. “You have a duty to-”

“To  _ who _ ?” Trini spits. “The only people I have a duty to are my parents. And my brothers. I saved the world. I don’t need this, man.” She throws her hands up in the air. “I didn’t even want this in the first place.” She turns sharply on her heel and storms towards the front of the spaceship. She can hear Jason talking behind her and the sound of heavy footsteps following after her.

Zack’s long arm drapes itself over her shoulders. 

“What?” She sags a little under his hold. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He leads her towards the pool. “Where you go, I go, Crazy Girl.”

They stop under the pool, looking up at the icy water above them. She presses her hand to her chest. “Do you feel that?”

Zack nods. “Billy.”

The sadness weaves its way through Trini’s chest and into her stomach. “He wants us to be a team again. To be friends.” His sadness sinks under her frustration. “I don’t think we can be. Do you?”

Zack crouches a little. He looks back at her before he rocks onto the balls of his feet, ready to push off. “Where you go, I go, Crazy Girl.”

He jumps and she follows.

-

90 days after they defeat Rita, Trini wakes up and smells saltwater in the air.

Her heart is pounding, pulse racing. She feels like she’s in a wind tunnel and all of the sound is being sucked out of the room slowly. Her bedsheets tangle around her legs like they’re trying to hold her down; to pull her through the water and into the water she’s sure is beneath her bed. There are hands on her face and she panics, swinging her arms up and catching someone hard in the jaw.

“ _ Shit _ ,” someone hisses.

Trini sits up and the room spins. She closes her eyes tightly and tries to breathe in through her nose but she gags. The hands are back, pushing her hair off her face and behind her ears, pulling it off her neck into a loose ponytail.

“Breathe,” someone coaches. “Just breathe.”

Kim. The voice sounds like Kim. The hands feel like Kim. Trini struggles to find the connection and Kim’s pulses right next to hers.

“That’s it. Just breathe.” Kim’s fingers stroke down the sides of Trini’s neck. “Come on. One more breath.”

The air in Trini’s lungs it patchy at best but it puts the world on the right axis and makes it a little easier for her to breath in and out. Her heart rate settles into a faint pulse and the room starts to come back into focus.

“You’re okay,” Kim says softly. “You had a nightmare.”

“Rita,” she gasps.

Kim’s body slides closer, their legs brushing. “I know. I could feel it.” The bed dips as she pushes Trini back up against the headboard. She settles in front of Trini, legs crossed. Her knees dig into Trini’s thigh and it’s not uncomfortable. It’s solid. Weighted. It feels like she’s connecting Trini to the ground.

“I  _ hate _ her,” Trini whispers hoarsely.

Kim pushes some sweat-soaked hair off her forehead. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like.” Her eyes drift to the crudely painted wall across from Trini’s bed. “But she’s gone.”

“What if she’s not?” Trini whispers. It’s what she imagines, sometimes. They slapped Rita into space, but what if the sun didn’t swallow her whole. What if the darkness never captured her. She’s an alien, not a human. A human couldn’t survive that, but maybe. Maybe Rita can.

“Then we kick her ass. Again.” Kim dips her head to meet Trini’s eyes and smiles softly. “And we won’t let her get to you. Not again.”

Trini takes a shaky breath. Her body deflates a little and she sinks back into the pillows bunched up at her headboard. Kim’s hand drops to her thigh. “You felt it,” she guesses.

“It felt like I was back in my Zord, you know? Only, I was dreaming about-” Kim stops and bites down on her bottom lip. “Anyway, I was dreaming about something good and all of the sudden, I was suffocating.”

Trini’s hand drifts to her neck. “She choked me. She…”

Kim’s hand falls over hers. “You can barely see the marks.” She carefully unwinds Trinis’s hand from her throat. “See?” Her fingers ghost across the thing, silvery lines. “You can’t even see them unless you’re looking for them.”

Trini breathes a little easier. “How did you get in?” she asks.

Kim winces. “I might have broken the lock.”

Trini groans and lets her head fall back onto the pillows. “My dad is going to kill me.”

“I’ll fix it,” Kim promises. “You’ll never even know I snapped it. It’s just… You weren’t waking up and I didn’t think your parents would really like it if I was knocking on your window at two in the morning, so... I made a choice.” Kim’s hand drifts down her neck and off her collarbone. “I chose you.”

“Kim,” Trini breathes.

Kim drops her hand over Trini’s. “We can be friends, you know.”

Trini rasps out a laugh. “We don’t know anything about each other.”

Kim’s eyes move around the room and get stuck on the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. “You know more about me than most people.”

“More than Harper and Amanda?”

Kim snorts. “You know  _ way _ more about me than Amanda or Harper.” She sighs. “They know who I used to be. You know… You know who I want to be.” She turns her hand over, palm up. “I just don’t know how to get there.”

“Ditch the skirt,” Trini mutters. She almost wants to take it back. She doesn’t mind the skirt. She kind of likes the skirt. She just hates what it represents. She hates the divide it puts between  _ Kim _ and  _ Kimberely _ . She sighs and drops her hand. Her fingers brush against Kim’s palm. “Your mom said you like being on the squad.”

“I do,” Kim says quickly. “I like  _ cheering _ .” 

Trini lets her hand fall over Kim’s. “But?”

Kim sighs and nudges Trini’s legs over on the bed, turning so that she’s sitting with one knee in Trini’s side. Her fingers dance across the comforter bunched up around Trini’s waist. “But it’s so hard to be so…  _ on _ all the time. In school and after school. I just want to be-” She stops herself and snorts. “I just want to be out on the old train cars, throwing rocks at Zack and pretending to help Billy with the teleportation thing he’s working on.”

“He told me about that.” Trini smiles crookedly. “He’s really convinced we can teleport through the water. He wanted to do a test run but I wasn’t convinced he wouldn’t end up in, like Hong Kong. Or something.”

Kim is quiet for so long that Trini starts to list constellations in her head.  _ Andromeda, Antila, Apus, Aquarius, Ara, Aries _ .

“It was real, right?”

Trini blinks. Kim is staring at their hands almost touching on the comforter.

“Like, we saved the world. We actually did that.” Kim looks up at her, their eyes meeting. “We kicked an alien’s ass and saved the world.”

“We didn’t kick her ass.” Trini smiles crookedly. “We bitchslapped her.”

Kim rolls her eyes. “Same difference.”

Trini shifts on the mattress. “Not really. One involves a foot and the other is a hand.”

“ _ Trini _ ,” Kim huffs. Her smile fades a little. “But… what we had was real, right?”

Trini shifts again, uncomfortable now. “I don’t know.”

Kim sighs and her hand clenches into a fist.

“We’re…” Trini shrugs a shoulder like she doesn’t care. “We’re Power Rangers. Maybe that’s all we’re supposed to be.”

Kim opens her mouth and closes it again just as quickly. There’s something in her eyes that Trini wants to know more about, but a door opens somewhere in the hallway and they both freeze. Trini tries to find the noise. Someone pads quietly down the hallway towards them but stops before the door. She hears the bathroom light pop on and she breathes out, her heart racing in her chest.

“My dad…”

Kim bites down on her bottom lip and nods. “Yeah. My mom’ll go nuts if I’m not in my bed. The prison guards do night checks,” she jokes.

“She loves you,” Trini blurts. “She really does.”

Kim smiles a little. “Your mom loves you too.”

The bathroom light fizzles out and the footsteps start down the hall.

Kim’s hand brushes hers as she stands up. She smooths down the front of her Angel Grove Cheer Association shirt and Trini tries not to watch it cover the small strip of skin between the bottom of her shirt and the line of her sweatpants. She looks past Kim instead, to the open window and into the night. The sky is clear and the stars are bright and it makes her think about Zack and what’s he doing.

Kim slips across the room and into a pair of sneakers that Trini didn’t notice before. She meets Trini’s eyes and doesn’t look away until the footsteps start back in their direction. She pauses at the window, touching the lock with a guilty look in her eyes. She mouths  _ sorry _ at Trini and dips out onto the windowsill, pausing on the roof before she disappears from sight.

Trini exhales loudly and sinks back into her pillows, staring up at the stars on her ceiling. She can still feel Kim’s hand in hers.

They’re still not friends.

-

Someone taps her on the shoulder and Trini startles, headphones sliding off her ears as she jerks her head back.

Kim looks down at her, sheepish. “Sorry. I thought you heard me.”

Trini drops her headphones to her neck and scowls. “Obviously not.”

Kim sways back and forth in spot, her cheer skirt swishing slightly. “We have to get into groups of four for this assignment.”

“And Kim picked  _ you _ ,” Harper huffs. “When Matt Hoyer is sitting over there by himself.”

Amanda huffs, hair fluttering around her face. “Can we just, like, sit down. Everyone is starting to stare at us like we’re freaks.” She smiles at Trini, all teeth. “We haven’t even sat down yet and you’re rubbing off on us.”

Trini glares at Kim.

“Cool it,” Kim says. She looks at Trini. “Trini gets some of the best grades in class. It’s not like you two don’t need the help.”

Amanda’s cheeks flush and Harper rolls her eyes. They each grab a nearby desk, dragging it over reluctantly.

“What’re you doing?” Trini hisses.

Kim drops her books onto Trini’s desk, covering up the doodles Trini was working on. “I told you. We can be friends.”

It’s been 13 days since they spoke. Trini thought that maybe Kim forgot that. 

“I meant-” Trini leans in closer. “I meant with  _ you _ . Not with you and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”

Kim waves a hand dismissively. “They’ll be fine.”

“Just… Just reign them in, all right?” Trini scowls again and grabs Kim’s book, flipping them open. Kim stops her and finds the right page, her knee burning against Trini’s under the desk. “What’re we even doing?”

Amanda scoffs. “So girl genius doesn’t even know where we are?” She turns to Kim. “Seriously, Kim. We could have picked  _ anyone _ in the whole class.”

Kim shrugs. “Go find another group, then.”

Amanda closes her mouth and picks at her fingernails instead.

“We’re reading chapter forty and doing the review questions in the back,” Harper says. “Sylvan is giving one chapter to each group. Something about getting through the rest of the chapters that we missed before Christmas break.” She makes a face at them. “What? I pay attention.”

Kim leans closer, her hair brushing Trini’s shoulder. “So, want to take turns reading?”

“Yeah, right.” Amanda pulls her book into her lap and angles herself towards Harper. “We’ll read the first section and do the questions. You two can do the second part.” She turns into Harper, pushing the book over until they’re both holding it up.

Kim gives Trini a small smile. “Sorry. I really thought you heard me. I didn’t think you actually had music playing.”

“They’re not just for show,” Trini grumbles.

“I just don’t know anyone who would actually be listening to music instead of pretending not to pay attention.” Kim shoulders her gently. “Takes a lot of guts.”

“Kim,” Trini sighs. “You really could have been Matt Hoyer’s partner, you know.”

Kim flicks a few pages forward until she finds the heading for section two. “And miss out on your charming personality?”

“Kim.”

“We’re going to be friends,” Kim sings.

But Trini is sure now. She doesn’t want to be friends. She doesn’t want to just be friends. Her stomach knots every time she thinks about Kim. Her hands get sweaty. Her neck gets hot. Billy wanted to diagnose her with the flu the last time this happened. It took her a whole twenty minutes to convince him that she had all of her shots and she was probably just overheating.

“It’s winter,” he said, confused.

She waved him off and prayed he would let it go. She didn’t need Billy to know.

She thinks maybe Kim knows, though.

Zack definitely does.

He’d made a face after he was done talking about Kim, like he smelled something weird. “Does anyone else feel that?” he asked. Billy shook his head. Trini pressed her lips into a thin line. She felt it. She was the reason he was feeling it. He didn’t say anything to her about it, but when she forced the feeling away, he looked a little better.

“Heartburn,” he decided. “Captain, My Captain must be eating a chili cheese dog or something.”

Trini bounces her leg. It bumps into Kim’s. Her palms are starting to tingle now and she swallows down the rise of fear in her stomach. She knows what’s going to happen. Her hands will shake and she’ll start to sweat. Kim will see her. Kim will feel her. Kim will know that the closer she sits to Trini, the worse the feeling will get. It’s starting slowly but it won’t take long until Trini can’t get a word out that isn’t “ _ I like you _ ” or “ _ I don’t want to be friends _ ”.

And then she feels panic.

Her head snaps up and she stares at the side of Kim’s face. The panic isn’t her. It’s can’t be. It doesn’t feel like Zack, either. There’s no anger attached to it. Maybe it’s Jason. He’s got some big basketball game this week. Everyone is talking about it. Billy is talking about it. But Billy also has some big project in his robotics club. Or maybe Damo tried to put him through a locker again or something.

It can’t be Kim. She knows that much.

Because Kim is casually flipping pages in the textbook they’re sharing, eyes scanning the titles of the sections and subsections they’re supposed to be reading. Kim is chewing on her bottom lip thoughtlessly. She’s grabbing Trini’s pen out of her hand and scribbling down an answer on the corner of Trini’s notebook and she’s doing it so effortlessly that it  _ can’t _ be her. 

Even if Trini wants it to be her.

“What-” Trini swallows. “What questions are we even answering?”

Amanda huffs again but Harper beats her to it. “We’ve got 1-6. You guys take the rest.”

Trini nods dumbly, trying to focus on the words in front of her. But all she can feel is that panic and the sweat on the back of her neck and Kim’s bare knee against her leg where there’s a hole in her jeans. 

Kim’s hand lands on Trini’s knee and yeah. Maybe the panic  _ is _ Trini now.

She can’t focus on what she’s reading. She knows that it’s there in front of her. She knows that one letter after another spells out a word and words make sentences and sentences are what she’s supposed to be reading so she can answer the questions. Those are also made up of letters and words and sentences. 

But Kim’s hand is on her knee and her fingernails are catching in the loose strands of the hole in Trini’s jeans and how is she supposed to focus on  _ biology _ when that’s happening.

The bell rings and Trini startles at the sound.

“We’ll pick this back up tomorrow. Same groups,” Sylvan calls out over the sound of people shoving things into their backpacks and slamming their books closed. 

Amanda hands Harper the book and stands up. “Same group tomorrow,’ she says, bored.

“Perfect.” Kim squeezes Trini’s knee before her hand disappears.

Amanda eyes them carefully, looking back and forth. “So, like, are you guys friends, now? Or whatever?”

Kim smiles and tips her head to one side carefully. “Yeah. Or whatever.” She brushes her hand against Trini’s shoulder.

Amanda rolls her eyes. “Fine. But if this is going to be a more-than-one-time thing, you’re not allowed to get weird, okay?” She hooks her chin towards the door and Harper follows after her. She looks back over her shoulder. “Got it, Trini?”

“You remembered my name.” Trini feels oddly touched.

Amanda scoffs and continues on her way, Harper trailing after her. Trini turns back and Kim is staring at her, lips pressed together and eyes narrowed.

“What?” Trini asks defensively. She starts to shove books into her backpack, pushing loose papers down into the bottom.

“Nothing,” Kim says quickly. “I guess Zack wasn’t joking when he said you were into Amanda.”

Trini makes a gagging noise. “No way. Definitely not.”

Cool relief floods through her. Her eyes widen. 

“Okay,” Kim says after a minute, still looking at her.

“Okay,” Trini echoes, eyes lingering on Kim’s mouth.

Kim breaks the staring contest first, picking her back up off the floor. “So, tomorrow? Same group?”

“Kim-”

“Great!” Kim takes a few steps backward, grinning. “See you then.”

Trini sighs and looks up at the ceiling. She gives a mental middle finger to the happiness blooming in the middle of her chest.

-

“I want to meet your friends,” her mom says one night over dinner.

Trini thinks of Zack sitting at their dining room table, shoveling food into his mouth, and nearly laughs out loud.

Her mom spears a green bean on the end of her fork and points it in Trini’s direction. “It’s after the holidays, so no one should be too busy to come over one night. Lord knows you spend enough time out with them. Have them come to you for once.”

“Mom,” Trini starts.

“Don’t,” her mom says sharply. “You’re out at all hours. You’re barely home. I want to know who you’re spending your time with.”

114 days ago she saved Angel Grove and now her mom wants to meet her friends.

“My friends don’t really do… parents.” Trini pushes her food around on her plate. Billy does parents. Zack gets weird around authority figures.

Kim is good with parents. Really good with parents.

But she’s not sure she’d invite Kim. They’re kind of friends. They sit together in biology most days and Kim says hi to her in the hallways now. Amanda and Harper even said something nice about her the other day. Well, they said her jacket didn’t suck. That kind of counts. But that’s it, with Kim. She hasn’t climbed through Kim’s window and Kim hasn’t climbed through hers. They don’t do anything more than passing pleasantries. 

She still feels a ripple of anticipation every time she spots Kim down the hallway.  Trini wonders if Kim feels it too.

Her mom shakes her head. “Nonsense. They’ll be fine.”

“You’ll interrogate them.”

“I will not.” Her mom frowns at her.

“You will. You’ll be nosy and-”

“Trini,” her father says, interrupting them. “Your mother said she wants to meet your friends. I don’t see why you shouldn’t invite them over. How does Friday night sound?”

Trini glares at him a little.  _ Traitor _ , she thinks.

“Fine,” she says. “But this is just going to go badly.”

\- 

It goes pretty badly.

Zack is too stiff, too formal. He wears a hand-me-down suit jacket that’s too small and almost rips at the seams when he tries to carry the plates Trini’s mom hands him. Billy is too wired and can’t hold down one conversation, jumping between topics until Trini doesn’t even know where he started or where he’s going.

Trini almost texts Kim and tells her to come over and save her.

She climbs onto her roof when it’s over and lays back, staring up at the stars. Billy’s mom picks him up and waves from the driver’s seat with a wide smile. Zack shakes her mom’s hand and scales the side of her house, settling on the roof next to her.

“Did you know the International Astronomical Union has newsletters?”

Trini turns her head towards him. “They do?”

Zack is still looking up at the stars. “Yeah. They go back to 2006. What?” he says defensively. “I have to do something while you’re at school.”

“How about coming to school?   


Zack scoffs. “No way. The man wants to hold me down.”

Trini rolls her eyes. “Tha man wants you to get a high school degree so you can get a job at Krispy Kreme and give me free donuts.”

Zack is quiet for a while and Trini lets him be. She likes this about him. Sometimes, he doesn’t need to talk. Or he knows that she doesn’t want to and he doesn’t push it. Her mom pushes it. Her dad pushes it sometimes. Her guidance counselors and her teachers and that shrink her mom brought her to once, they all want her to talk.

Sometimes, she doesn’t know what to say.

“Kim came and saw me,” Zack finally says.

Trini tenses a little. “Oh, yeah?”

Zack shifts on the roof and a shingle kicks loose. “Oops,” he mutters. “I’ll fix that.”

Trini shrugs it off. “Dad was talking about replacing the roof this summer.” She picks at the shingle underneath her hand. “What did Kim say?”

“She told me that Amanda Clark said that Tommy Oliver said that I was homeless and living in a dumpster.” He says it so casually. 

Trini feels the anger flare-up in her chest and Zack winces a little. She tries to tamper it down. She’s been practicing it. Or trying to, at least. Controlling her emotions, Billy called it. He said she gave him heartburn sometimes. 

“It’s kind of an upgrade, to be honest.” Zack shifts a little and it feels nervous. “Last time this rumor went around, I was living in a box.”

She gets angry again and she knows he feels it. Her phone beeps in her pocket but she ignores it for a minute.

“She told me that you yelled at her about it,” he continues. “Came to my rescue and everything.”

“Yeah, well. What else was I supposed to do?” She pauses. “You’re, like, my best friend, or whatever.”

He doesn’t laugh at her like she thought he would. He doesn’t reach over and pinch her cheek. He doesn’t even shove at her shoulder. He stays quiet. Something warms pushes out the anger in her stomach. 

“You know,” he says quietly. “No one has really stood up for me before. I’ve always been the weird kid. Mom has been so sick for so long that staying in school is hard. I want to take care of her. I don’t want to be learning algebra. It doesn’t have anything to do with her medications or anything.” His voice is rising in anger and she feels it start to roil inside of her. She’s getting angry again because he’s angry now. She’s getting angry again because people don’t get him. “How do I sit in class and learn about frogs and shit when I need to be home, with her?” He scoffs. “It’s not like my dad was up for the job, you know?”

“I know,” she says quietly. “I know how much you love her.”

“It’s been easier,” he admits. “Having friends. I’ve never really had those before.” He barks out a sharp laugh. “Actually, Tommy Oliver used to be my friend.”

“He’s a douche.”

He laughs harder. “He is. Did I tell you he used to wet his pants in gym class? He was afraid of dodgeballs. We were, like, 8.” She can feel his anger fading. “I never told anyone, though.” He sighs. “Now he thinks he’s cool just because he can catch a football. But you know what?  _ We’re  _ cool. We’re cooler. We saved the whole goddamn world.”

He sighs and pulls his phone up over his face, scrolling through his pictures. She knows he’s looking for the one he took with his Zord. He likes to look at it sometimes.

She opens the messages on her phone. There’s one from Kim.  _ Are you okay? I felt you get angry. _

She knows Kim is trying. She knows Kim wants to be friends. 

She knows she doesn’t want to be friends with Kim.

So she leaves the message on read and pushes her phone back into her pocket and looks back up at the sky.

“Do you think Rita is up there?” she asks him.

“Maybe,” he says. “Maybe she got hit by a meteorite.” He stretches out a hand and his fingers brush her wrist. “I’ve been counting, you know. On a calendar. It’s been 117 days since we won. And I still feel like a total loser, all of the time.”

“I count too,” she admits.“ And I don’t think you’re a loser.” She turns her hand over and grabs for his, holding it lightly. “Well, I do. But that’s because I know you.”

Zack makes a soft noise in his throat. “Hey, want to know what I know about the Big Dipper?”

“Ursa Major,” she supplies.

“Ursa Major. It means great bear.” Zack stretches one arm out above his head and pillows it under his head. “I even know the star names. Want me to tell you them?”

_ Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez, Alioth, Mizar, Alkaid _ .

“Sure,” she says. “Tell me about them.”

-

“Hey,” Kim says, cutting through the foot traffic in the hallway. Trini stops short and feels someone crash into her from behind. She ignores them but Kim throws a scathing look over Trini’s shoulder and whoever it is backs off. “You missed bio.”

Trini tries not to shiver under Kim’s hand on her arm. “Yeah. Dentist appointment.”

Kim pulls her out of the crowd and leans against a locker that doesn’t belong to either of them. “Well, I got your homework.” She takes her hand off Trini’s arm and opens the biology book she’s holding. “Amanda wondered where you were.” Kim looks at Trini out of the corner of her eye.

Trini makes a face. “Why?”

Kim shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe she missed you.”

Trini snorts. “Sure. Well, I didn’t miss her.”

“Okay.”

Trini takes the single worksheet Kim hands her. “Okay.”

The bell rings and the hallway clears out quickly, students slipping into classrooms so that Vice Principal Vega doesn’t catch them and give them detention. Kim stays where she is, leaning against a locker with a cool look on her face.

“You know, if you like Amanda-”

“Oh my  _ god _ , Kim. Give it a rest, would you?” She throws her hands up in the air. “I don’t like Amanda Clark. She’s, like, nowhere close to my type. And even if she was, her personality is a huge no.” She exhales loudly. “So, leave it alone, okay?” She folds the worksheet up into a tiny, tight square. She’ll just shove it in her pocket for now.

“What is it?” Kim asks. “Your type, I mean.”

Trini shrugs. “I don’t know. Not a bitch, for one.”

Kim bites down on her bottom lip. “Do you still think I’m a bitch?”

Trini sighs. “I don’t know, Kim. Are you?”

“I hope not,” Kim breathes. And then she’s pulling on Trini’s arm until their toes bump and their noses brush and then she’s there, kissing Trini in the middle of the hallway up against someone else’s locker.

The worksheet in her hand falls to the floor. She curls her hand around Kim’s waist instead and tries to focus. Kim kisses her slowly, their lips touching carefully. This isn’t like her first kiss in the library, hiding in the stacks from their middle school teacher. That was nervous and shaky; neither of them knew what they were doing.

But Kim knows what she’s doing. Her hand drifts to Trini’s neck and her fingernails scratch slightly at the skin just below Trini’s ear and her lips press a little harder, a little more firmly. 

It’s been 122 days since they slapped Rita into space and Trini has been wanting this for nearly all of them.

She thinks maybe she kicks her homework away when she steps in closer. She can’t care about biology now, not when Kim is tilting her head and her mouth opens just slightly. Not when the hand at her jaw slides to the back of her neck and into her hair. Not when Kim is kissing her like  _ that _ . 

The sound of heels against the tiled floor cut through the  _ Kim-is-kissing-me _ fog in her head and she pulls back slowly. Kim follows, kissing her again.

“Kim,” she breathes.

Kim pulls away, her eyes closed for a second longer before she opens them. “Was that okay?”

_ No _ .  _ I don’t know _ , she thinks.  _ Yes _ .

She opens her mouth but the heels get closer and she gently pushes Kim away, putting space between them.

“Trini, are you-”

“Vega,” Trini says, the word strangled in her throat. “I think she’s coming.” She has history, with Jason, down the hall. She knows Kim is going to English, in the opposite direction. “Uh, you can, uh…”

“I’ll text you,” Kim says quickly. They can both hear Vega coming towards them; if they wait any longer they’ll both get another Saturday of “Better Choices” and Tommy Oliver. Her hand plays with the front of Trini’s jacket. “Say hi to Jason for me.”

She won’t, but she nods anyway and turns quick, hurrying to history before Vega catches her.

-

_ Meet me in the bathroom _ , Kim’s text said. Trini had palmed her phone, hiding it out of sight of her math teacher, Mr. Young’s, before raising her hand and asking to go the bathroom. She’d dodged Ty Fleming’s feet that he stuck out in the aisle as she tried to move past him, and he scowled. 

Kim was standing at the sinks, leaning back against the porcelain, picking at her fingers. “Hey,” she says, moving forward. She stops halfway, her foot tapping nervously against the floor.

Trini feels nervous, too. It’s been 2 days since Kim kissed her and she’s been panicky ever since. She flinches every time a door slams too loud. She sidesteps people in the hallway. She lays awake at night looking at Grus and wondering how Kim can fly her Zord so well. So effortlessly.

It makes her wonder how Kim can kiss so well, too.

“Hey,” she manages.

“Sorry I didn’t text,” Kim says quickly. “We had a basketball game and-”

“I know.” Trini saw them all in their uniforms yesterday. Sylvan didn’t split them into groups for biology, so she sat in the back with her headphones on, trying not to stare at the long stretch of skin from the bottom of Kim’s skirt to the hem of her socks. “They won.”

Kim shrugs. “We’re better than they are.”

“I bet,” Trini says under her breath. She moves her beanie back a little, pushing it out of her eyes.

“Do you only own one of those?” Kim smiles. “I feel like you only own one of those.”

Trini shrugs. “Why would I need more than one if this one is perfect?”

Kim reaches out one hand and touches it, her fingers brushing against the side of Trini’s face. “Yeah. It is pretty perfect.”

Trini cracks a small smile. “See? Told you.”

Nervousness starts to build in the pit of her stomach. Kim is looking at her with the same face as she did in the hallway. She can feel her palms start to sweat a little. At least in the hallway, there was no time to get nervous. There was no time to worry that she ate scrambled eggs with ketchup for breakfast or that she’s wearing two different socks. There’s no time to get nervous about the fact that she’s less than a foot away from a girl she really, really likes.  Who can probably feel exactly how nervous she is.

Kim smiles, her head tipped to one side, and Trini knows that she knows.

“So…”

Kim’s hand falls to her shoulder. “So.”

She kisses Kim this time. She has to. She’s so close and she’s looking at Trini the same way she was looking before, during Bio and across the table at Krispy Kreme, that she has to do it. She closes her eyes and she leans in and Kim is right there, her mouth soft and warm. 

Kim’s arm slides around her waist and Trini presses closer until she can feel the ends of Kim’s hair against her cheek. She tilts her head to one side and sighs against Kim’s lips. They’re so close that Trini can feel Kim’s chest rise and fall as they kiss slowly in the girl’s bathroom. It’s gross, probably. But she forgets about it as Kim’s lips part just a little, her breath hot against Trini’s mouth. 

She’s standing in one place and then she’s spinning, Kim’s body pressing against hers as they stumble back into the sink. She laughs, surprised, and she can feel Kim’s smile against her own.

“Are you okay?” Kim frames her face, hands on her cheeks. 

She smiles a little and nods her head, eyes on Kim’s lips.

The door opens and the sounds of the hallways flood in like cold water; like they’re diving into the freezing cold pool. She jumps back at the sudden noise, the edge of the sink cutting into her back. She barely feels it. All she can think about is Kim’s mouth on hers.

“Oh.” The girl in the doorway stops short. “Kim, I- I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in here.”

Kim’s smile goes tight. “Mandi.”

“I’ll just- I…” Mandi looks at the stalls and then takes a step back. “I’ll use another bathroom.” She slips out of the bathroom and the door closes with a soft click.

Kim snorts. “She’s been, like, terrified of me since the day she came in here with Ty. She won’t even look me in the eye.”

Trini smoothes her hand down the front of her jacket. “Big, bad Kim. Striking fear into the hearts of freshmen everywhere.”

Kim smiles a little wider. “Perks of being head cheerleader.”

And there it is. The line between  _ Kim _ and  _ Kimberly _ . But it doesn’t feel like such a hard, thick line anymore. It feels fainter, now. She can see them both. And she doesn’t hate it. Not anymore.

“I want to be your friend,” Kim blurts.

Trini flinches. “Oh.” Kim wants to be her friend. Friends don’t kiss the way they kissed. Friends don’t kiss at all. She takes a small step back, hitting the edge of the sink.

Kim reaches for her. “I mean, I don’t. I mean, I do, but-”

“It’s okay,” Trini interrupts. “You don’t have to do this. I- I get it.”

“You really don’t,” Kim breathes. “I’m trying to say, that…”

Trini leans out of the way of Kim’s hands. “You don’t have to. I get it,” she repeats.

Kim shakes her head. “Trini. I want to be your friend and-and  _ more _ .”

“Oh.”

Kim smiles a little. “Yeah. Oh.”

The nervousness flares up again and Kim winces. “That doesn’t feel like a good feeling.”

“It is,” Trini says quickly. She pauses. “Well, I think it is. I’m just…

“Nervous.”

“I kind of hate that you can feel that.” Trini stretches her beanie out in her hands.

Kim dips her head to catch her eye. “I think I can turn it off. I’ve been practicing.” She smiles. “There’s only so much anxiety I can take in one day, you know? Between the four of you, it feels like I’m one minute away from a panic attack.”

Trini stares at her. “You can do that?”

Kim shrugs. “It’s not perfect. I can still feel it when Jason has a big test in Spanish. Or, like, when Zack is getting mad about something.” She takes the beanie from Trini’s hands and smoothes it out. “You’re different, though. Like, you feel different.”

“Like more,” Trini offers. “Yeah. You… You feel the same way.”

Kim steps in again, her toes against Trini’s “You’re nervous.”

“You’re, like, really close, dude.” Trini breathes in through her nose. 

Kim pauses. “Too close?”

Trini shakes her head. “No.” She wets her lips. “No.”

-

The days kind of blur after Kim kisses her. It’s been 124 days and then 125 and then 130 and they’ve been finding bathrooms and backseats of cars and kissing until Trini feels like she can’t breathe. It’s a good kind of ache. Like sparring for the first time. She smiles a lot. Her muscles burn. She lays awake at night and imagines Grus flying in circles around Leo.

It’s how Kim makes her feel; dizzy. 

She slips out of the bathroom one day -  _ a minute after me, _ Kim said. _ Wait for the bell to ring _ \- and bumps into Jason., bouncing off his arm.

“Watch where you’re going,” she sneers before she realizes it’s him.

He smiles a little. “Hey, didn’t see you there.”

“Obviously,” she mutters. Her hair feels messy and she pushes a few flyaways back. Kim had her hands in her hair earlier, fingers messing up the braid she painstakingly put in this morning. She hadn’t cared then; she was too busy kissing Kim to mind. But now it feels obvious and out of place and she thinks maybe Jason can see right through her.

“So, Booker is kind of an asshole, right?”

Trini stares at him. Their history teacher isn’t that bad. He doesn’t like the football team, that’s for sure. But he’s still pretty fair. Except when kids like Trent Holliday and Gavin Maker are being total douchebags.

“I don’t know.” Trini shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe he just holds people accountable.”

Jason rubs at the back of his neck. He’s wearing red, still. They’re all doing it. Billy got blue shirts for Christmas. Zack bought a new black, leather jacket. She’s swapped out her beanie for a muted mustard yellow one. Kim’s  _ everything _ was already pink. Now she just wears it more often. 

Trini kind of likes that.

“But yeah, that project he gave us is kind of ridiculous,” she offers.

He jumps on the lifeline. “I know. I don’t even know where to start.”

She’s not sure why, it must be Kim and her  _ we-can-all-be-friends _ thing, but she opens her mouth. “I have a list of sources at home. And the Wikipedia article on the Civil War has some good things. Legit things.”

He sighs in relief. “That would be great. Basketball is supposed to be my offseason but we’re on the playoff track and Coach says we need to practice all the time. Homework is kind of hard to balance.”

“Imagine if we were, like, actually Power Rangers.”

She feels his spike of anxiety. It catches her off guard. She’s been practicing with Kim, this whole pushing off other people’s emotions thing. Kim climbed through her window two nights ago and they sat on her bed, knees pressed together, as Kim tried to teach her what to do. It’s been easier. It’s been better. Billy got excited about something working with his teleportation device and she barely even felt it. 

But she’s not ready for Jason’s panic. He’s tense in the shoulders, his neck muscles tight. His throat bobs as he swallows and his eyes dart side to side, taking in the empty hallway.

“Hey, dude. It’s okay.” She reaches out and puts a hand on his arm. “Seriously.” 

He starts a little. “Sorry.” He presses a hand to his chest. “I forget you guys can feel that.” He looks around the hallway. “Do you think people know? That we saved Angel Grove.”

139 days ago, they saved Angel Grove, and no one seems to care anymore.

She shrugs a shoulder. “No, I don’t think so. I think everyone is too focused on if Golden Boy Jason Scott is going to lead Angel Grove to another championship.” She glances down the hallway to the gleaming trophy in the case. She didn’t go to the game, but Jason was on the front page of the paper the next morning, sitting high on his teammate’s shoulders, holding the golden cup high.

Jason winces a little. “Yeah.”

Trini sighs. It’s been 68 days since she’s talked to him and she’s not sure what to say that isn’t something angry or passive-aggressive. “Sorry,” she mumbles.

“No, I am.” Jason takes a small step closer. “I’m supposed to lead this team, you know? And I didn’t. I let us fall apart.”

“Jason.” She takes a small step back. “You can’t really have expected that we would have stayed together, can you?” She rolls her eyes. “Dude, we didn’t even like each other. You didn’t even know who I was.”

“I’m still not sure I know you are,” he admits.

“No,” she agrees. “You don’t.”

“But Kim does.” He smiles at her. “I’ve seen you guys together, you know.”

Something like panic ripples through her and he smiles wider. 

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to say anything to anyone.” He ducks his head a little to meet her eyes. “I really only figured it out because I could, you know,  _ feel _ you guys.” He wrinkles his nose. “It’s weird, right? Like, sometimes I feel like I’m intruding. Like I know things about you guys that I shouldn’t.”

“Have you thought about taking some kind of medication?” she blurts out.

Jason’s cheeks go pink.

“For your anxiety,” she rushes on. “I just mean, it seems like it’s your default setting and that can’t really be good, long-term.”

“It’s just a lot,” he says finally. “Being in charge of everything. Between my dad and Zordon… It’s a lot.”

Trini shifts her weight, swaying back and forth. “You still go see Zordon?”

Jason nods. “He keeps showing up in my dreams and he won’t leave me alone. He just goes on and on about how  _ Rita isn’t the last _ and there’s something else coming. He won’t tell me what. I don’t actually think he knows.” He smiles tightly. “But he just keeps saying we’re not strong enough, as a team, to take whatever it is on.”

“We’re not.” He just stares at her. “We’re not a team.”

“We are,” he argues.

Trini scoffs. “When’s the last time we talked, huh? Dude, we have nothing in common besides saving the world.”

“That’s not true,” he says after a minute.

“Then what?” she challenges.

He stalls a little. “Trini..”

“I said, don’t  _ ‘Trini’ _ me like you know me, Jason.” She tugs anxiously on the straps of her backpack. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know some things.”

Trini shakes her head. “You don’t know anything worth anything. So my mom is overbearing. Principal Gibson could have told you the same thing. You don’t really need to do this again, Jason. You don’t need to play dad.”

“I’m the leader.”

“Of a team that doesn’t exist anymore.” She snorts. “The Power Rangers? Did you really think that was a thing that would last? We’re teenagers. We have teenage things to do.”

He smiles crookedly “Like Amanda Clark?”

Trini growls softly. “Would everyone just leave that alone.”

He holds up a hand “I was just kidding.”

Trini exhales through her nose. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” Jason looks away. “I am. For everything. For getting us into this mess. For not being around when Rita-” Trini’s chest hitches. “-got to you. For just leaving afterward.” He sighs heavily and runs a hand over his face. “It felt good, you know? Like, I know there was all this pressure to save the world, but we had each other. We didn’t have to do it alone. We  _ were _ a team.”

She shrugs, pretending like she doesn’t care. “Past tense, dude.”

Jason nods, looking past her distractedly. “Listen,” he starts. “I know I was an ass. I know I got back on the football team and forgot about you guys. It’s not an excuse, but I just… wanted to feel normal again. And my normal has always been football and being a team captain and it was hard to go back to the guy who ended up in detention with a busted knee.” He tugs anxiously at his varsity jacket. “It was easier, you know? It was just easier to pretend it never happened. To pretend we didn’t know each other.”

She studies him carefully. He’s nervous, she can feel it. But there’s something below it. Something honest. 

“It was kind of shitty.” She sighs. “But I did the same thing, too. I kind of just bailed. I’m not used to having friends. And if we really wanted to be friends, we would have tried.”

He smiles a little. “What do we even have in common, right?” he echoes. His eyes light up. “I mean, besides our parents being total control freaks.”

“And we both know the saber-tooth tiger is way cooler than a T-Rex,” she continues.

He shakes his head. “No one will actually agree to that.”

“Zack would.” She preens a little. “He’ll take my side.”

Jason nods. “He’s a good friend.” He tips his head to one side. He looks like her dad, ready to say something meaningful. “We could be friends. If you wanted.”

She looks at him and thinks,  _ we’re not friends. We’re Power Rangers _ .

“You can think about it,” he says quickly. He pushes his hands into his pocket and rocks back on his heels. “No pressure. Seriously. But I’ll be around, okay? Okay.”

“Yeah,” she breathes. “Okay.”

She watches him walk down the hallway and out of sight and thinks,  _ maybe we could be friends _ .

-

Trini turns her head and watches as Kim looks up at the stars on Trini’s ceiling. Their hands touch, pinky fingers overlapping in the dark. She can feel Kim’s bare shoulder against her own. Her mom and dad took the boys to a movie with their friends and Kim crawled through the window ten minutes later.

Her Angel Grove Cheer Association sweatshirt is hanging off the end of Trini’s bed. Her shoes are under the windowsill, the broken lock still dangling above them. She’s stretched on Trini’s bed and her hair is fanned out around her.

There’s something warm and tight in the pit of Trini’s stomach. She doesn’t try to fight it off.

“Tell me about it,” Kim says, eyes on at Grus.

Trini keeps looking at Kim. “It’s a crane. It used to be called the flamingo.”

Kim turns her head. “Are you saying I’m a flamingo?”

Trini shrugs a shoulder. “You’re both pink?”

Kim huffs and looks back up at the ceiling. 

“It’s near the Tucana constellation,” Trini continues. “Like the toucan, you know? And it has 4 stars. 1 of them is only, like, 16 light-years away from Earth.”

“And that’s… close?”

Trini smiles. “Closer than other stars.” She looks back up at the ceiling. “Did you know that the crane was the sacred animal of Hermes?”

Kim scratches her fingernails down the center of Trini’s palm. “How do you know all of this?”

“I’m smart, remember?” Trini rolls onto her side, her lips almost touching Kim’s shoulder. “That’s why you picked me over Matt Hoyer in bio.”

“Matt Hoyer is a balloon with a head.” She frowns when Trini doesn’t say anything. “Full of hot air?”

Trini blinks. “That was really bad.” She lays back down flat, just a little closer to Kim. She takes in the constellations she built on her ceiling. Taurus and Aries are at the bottom, facing each other. Grus flies above Leo. Draco sits above them all, watching over the rest.

“Zack said he’d come to the next basketball game if I gave him $15.” Kim angles her head, her forehead against Trini’s temple. “Something about celebrities being paid to make appearances.”

Trini laughs. “He told  _ me _ he’d give me $15 to go to the next basketball game.” She waggles her eyebrows a few times. “I think that makes me the celebrity.”

Kim bites down on her bottom lip. “Maybe he just wants you to get a look at Amanda in her skirt.”

Trini rolls her eyes. “Maybe he just wants me to watch you dance around on the sidelines while Jason dribbles a basketball and girls swoon over him.”

“It’s not just dancing,” Kim mumbles, knocking her head gently into Trini’s. “We  _ cheer _ .”

“You understand that doesn’t make it sound better, right?” Trini smiles widely. “But for the record, I’d need at least $20 to go watch a basketball game.” She laughs when Kim gasps and catches Kim’s hand in her own when Kim lifts it high into the air.

Something as close to  _ love _ as she’s ever come rattles in her chest.

She hopes Kim feels it too.

Kim settles in against her side. “Would you go, though? To a basketball game?”

Trini makes a face. “Organized sports isn’t really my thing…” She trails off and pushes some of Kim’s hair off her shoulder. “But if you were there, I’d go.”

Kim smiles widely. “Perfect. Should I give Zack the money or pay you directly, or…” She laughs loudly and rolls away from Trini’s hands, off the side of the bed and onto the floor.

Trini smiles up at the ceiling and follows her.

-

Zack bumps past some kids, almost knocking their soda out of their hand as she tries to squeeze into the spot she’s saved him. They’re in the very corner of the stands, right near the door. They’re carefully picked out seats; she can get to the exit easily from here - just slip under the railing and make the short jump down - and Kim is just a few bleachers down and over, the whole squad taking up the first row.

“This many people go to our school?” Zack flops down next to her, elbowing a kid Trini thinks she recognizes from her math class. She almost mouths ‘sorry’ over Zack’s head but when the kid looks at them angrily, she glares back until he flushes and looks away. “I could have sworn there was, like, fifteen kids.”

Trini rolls her eyes. “Just give me my drink.”

“Be rude to me and I’ll tell Princess over there,” he threatens. “She’ll take my side.”

“No, she won’t.” Tini watches the girls get up and start to fan out across the sideline. The team is already on the court warming up. She watches Matt Hoyer pass Jason the ball. He shoots it and it swishes through the net.

Zack sighs. “No, she won’t. It’s not fair, really.” He shoves a hot dog into his mouth, almost swallowing the whole thing. “But I get it. You’re my ride or die, Crazy Girl.”

“Where you jump, I jump, Jack,” she says distractedly. Kim is scanning the crowd. She almost raises her hand into the air and realizes how stupid that would look just before she does it. She leans back on her palms instead, trying for cool.

Kim finally spots her and smiles widely, waving an arm at her. Amanda looks at her and then looks back into the crowd, finding Trini’s eyes. She rolls hers when she realizes who Kim is looking at.

Nerves shoot through her stomach and she looks away from Kim to Jason, standing at the bench with his team. He seems to feel her looking at him; he lifts his head up and finds her easily in the crowd. His mouth twitches into something of a smile and then he’s looking back down at the huddle he’s in.

“How’s the captain these days. Still a Moby Dick?” Zack offers her the last bite of his hotdog.

She waves him off. “He’s… okay.”

“Oo, okay.” Zack pops the last bite into his mouth. “Tell me more.”

They’ve been  _ okay _ for a few days now. She wasn’t sure what to say to Jason, not really. So she just sat down next to him in history instead, kicking Trent Holliday out of his seat. Jason had fought a smile as Trent complained about it, but Trent shut up when Booker had told him to just pick the empty seat at the back of the room.

“We were both jerks,” she said to him at the end of class. “Maybe we can be… less like jerks, to each other.”

Jason offered to hold the door open for her on their way out of the room and she punched him in the arm. 

“So we like him again?” Zack winks at a girl a few rows down.  _ Abby something _ , Trini thinks. A sophomore. Abby turns bright red and her friends laugh. 

“Yeah,” she decides. “Yeah, we do.”

“Cool. Because I have ideas on how to work this new hair thing he’s doing.” Zack leans back, their shoulders pressed together. “It’s getting a little long. I have some feedback.”

“He’ll love it,” she mutters, rolling her eyes.

Kim starts a cheer on the sideline, her arms above her head and her legs kicking into the air. 

Trini doesn’t know anything about basketball, but here is what she does know: it’s been 151 days since they defeated Rita, she’s sitting at a high school basketball game with her best friend, her girlfriend is cheering down on the sidelines, and she’s got something like  _ happiness _ warm and settled into the middle of her chest.

-

Trini’s mom opens the door before Trini can get to the bottom of the stairs and open it herself.

Zack launches himself through the doorway, pulling up short just before he runs over her mom. The liters of sodas in his arms teeter and her mom catches one as it comes out of his hold.

“Mom,” Trini says, her teeth grinding together. “I  _ told you _ , I’d get the door.”

Her mom hands Zack his soda. “I must not have heard you. Just like I didn’t hear you when you said you had…” she trails off, looking over Zack’s shoulder.

Kim steps through the doorway, her parent-smile on her face. “Hi. I’m Kimberly Hart.”

“ _ Kim _ ,” Trini hisses. She drags her hand across her throat.

Kim ignores her. “Trini and I are friends from school.”

Bravery buoys through her. “My girlfriend,” she says loudly. The words echo off the stairs and Zack’s chest and her mom’s hands. “Kim is my girlfriend.”

Her mom takes that in, eyes narrowed for a moment before she seems to read the wording on Kim’s sweatshirt. “You cheer?”

Kim brightens a little. “I’m the head cheerleader.”

Her mom looks back over her shoulder at Trini. “Trini, why didn’t you tell me Kim was a cheerleader.”

“I had literally no intention of telling you.” She ignores Kim’s eye roll.

“I cheered, in high school.” Her mom smiles widely at Kim. “I was never head cheerleader, but we were state champions two years running.” She pushes her hair over her shoulder. “Oh, I’m sure I have pictures of that somewhere.”

Trini grabs at Kim’s arm. “We don’t want to see them, do we, Kim?”

Kim grabs her hand, lacing their fingers together. “I’d love to.”

Trini groans. “No, Mom, come on.” 

Zack is still standing in the doorway, the soda bottles in his arms slipping in his hold. Trini looks past him and shakes her head a little. Billy grins and waves at her over Zack’s shoulder. Jason sheepishly holds up a pizza. She tugs a little harder on Kim’s hand.

“I’m sure they’re up in the attic,” her mom says. “I’d have to do some digging, but I’m positve that’s where they are.”

“That’s great, Mom,” Trini says quickly. “But Kim and the guys are going to come upstairs, okay?”

“The guys?” Her mom seems to realize that there are two more people standing on the front steps and she nudges Zack out of the way so she can see them. “Oh, Billy. And…”

“Jason.” Jason steps forward, his hand outstretched. “Jason Scott.”

154 days after Rita broke into her house, Jason Scott comes in for the first time. 

Her mom takes his hand slowly, forehead wrinkled in thought. “You stole a goat.”

Jason flinches a little.

“It was a cow, Trini’s mom.” Billy smiles. “Not a goat.”

Her mom pats Billy’s arm gently. “Thank you, Billy.” She turns to Trini, eyes darting towards where Trini’s hand is still holding Kim’s. “We have rules about eating upstairs, Trini.”

Trini feels her whole body tense, ready for a fight.

“But it’s nice of your friends to come over,” her mom continues. “So, just this once, you can eat in your room. But no messes, got it?” She doesn’t wait for Trini to answer. “Zack, come on. Let’s get some cups or that soda. I won’t have you holding a chugging contest upstairs. Those carpets aren’t easy to clean.

Trini watches her mom lead Zack down the hall to the kitchen. Relief is flooding through her body; she’s sure it’s from all of them. 

“Hey,” Kim breathes against her cheek. “I should have text you before we knocked. Zack just got excited.”

Trini sighs. “It’s fine. Next time just take the window instead.”

Kim nudges her gently. “That went well, though. Right?”

“Well, she’s not praying over us with a Bible,” Trini says reluctantly. “And she let Zack come inside. Even felon-Jason gets to be here.” She rolls her eyes when Kim pokes her in the side. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. It went well.”

Her mom comes out of the kitchen, trailing after Zack. “Now, if you guys need anything-”

“We won’t,” Trini promises.

“Don’t hesitate to ask,” her mom says over her. “I’ll be down here doing some work.”

Trini tugs at Kim’s hand, pulling her towards the stairs. The quicker she gets everyone upstairs, the less they find out exactly how lame and uptight and strict her mom can really be. Jason and Zack and Billy all get ahead of her, stomping up the stairs one at a time.

“Trini,” her mom says, stopping her. She grabs Trini’s free hand. “Wait a minute.”

Kim pulls her hand away slowly, giving Trini a reassuring smile. 

Zack puffs out his chest. “This way, guys.” They disappear up the stairs.

They both listen to the footsteps get further away. “It’s nice,” her mom says, thumb stroking the back of Trini’s hand. “To have your friends over.”

“We’re not-” Trini stops herself. She forces a smile instead, nodding. “Yeah. Thanks, Mom. For the pizza and the eating upstairs.”

Her mom smiles softly. “Go on. Before Zack tries to climb onto the roof again.”

Trini’s eyes widen. “Mom, I-”

Her mom waves her off. “I won’t tell your father if you won’t.”

“Okay,” she breathes.

“Okay.” Her mom winks and turns back towards the kitchen.

Trini climbs the stairs slowly, listening to the soft chatter that fills the hallway, coming out of her room. She stops in the doorway and watches as they explore her room. Jason and Zack are at the window, Jason fiddling with the broken lock hanging off the wood. Kim sits on her bed, back against the headrest. She’s seen Trini’s bedroom plenty of times. She gets Billy’s attention and points out the glow-in-the-dark constellations on the ceiling.

“I’m Aries, right?” he asks, looking back at Trini. “The ram.”

“Yeah. I mean, I think so.” Trini nervously picks at a flaking piece of paint on the ceiling.

“Draco, the dragon.” Billy points to Jason, then Zack. “Taurus, the bull. And Kim is…”

“Grus,” Kim says. “The crane.”

Jason offers a smile. “That’s cool.”

“It’s lame,” she says weakly.

Kim rests her chin on Trini’s shoulder. “It’s cool.”

Trini rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

They’re quiet for a moment, none of them sure what to do. Trini knows that if it was just Kim, they’d probably boot up Trini’s dad’s laptop and put on Netflix. If it was just Zack, he’d want to climb out onto the roof and rate the cheerleaders on a scale of Kim to Mandi. If it was Billy, they’d probably just work on homework. She’s not sure Jason would be here.

But everyone is here  _ now _ . And there’s pizza and soda and she does have her dad’s laptop. Her brother got a projector for his space camp stuff last Christmas; she can steal it and Billy can hook it up to the laptop. She can hang a sheet over the hole in the wall she hasn’t quite been able to repair correctly and they can do a whole movie thing. 

“Have you guys seen the good Fast and Furious movies?” she asks. The words feel a little clunky in her mouth.

Zack’s eyes light up. Billy frowns. Kim sinks back against her pillows, patting the empty space beside her. 

Jason nods slowly. “Which ones are those?”

“Any of them that have Jordana Brewster in them,” Trini and Zack say at the same time.

“Jinx!” Zack yells. “You owe me a soda.” He cradles one of the liters of soda he’s holding. “This whole one is mine now.”

Trini rolls her eyes. “No one actually recognizes that as a rule.”

Zack’s eyes widen. “They do! Billy, my friend. Tell her.”

Billy smiles sheepishly. “I don’t understand the game.”

“It’s okay,” Jason says, resting a hand on Billy’s shoulder. “No one really does.”

“Bullshit.” Zack points to himself. “ _ I _ understand the rules. Trini does too. Tell ‘em, T.”

Trini shrugs a shoulder. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Zack gasps and the sound is swallowed up by Billy, Jason, and Kim laughing.

She gets the laptop and the projector and Billy works some magic. Jason and Zack tack a white sheet into the high corners of the wall that Trini can’t reach. Kim scoots over on the bed and makes enough room for them to sit side by side. Their shoulders and knees press together and Kim is warm. Zack sprawls out on the floor in front of her bed, using the beanbag from her brothers’ room. Billy and Jason sit on the floor next to him, balancing their soda and pizza on their knees.

Kim’s hand fits into hers.

Hope bubbles in someone’s chest. Trini thinks it might be any one of them.

Or every one of them.

-

172 days after they slap Rita into space, they morph again.

She’s sparring with Kim and it feels good. Like that night in the mines, where they were fighting back to back. It feels like they never missed a beat. They’ve been doing this now for a couple of weeks. Meeting up at the mines and diving down into the pool, through the water, and to the spaceship. Their spaceship. 

She hangs on the gym bleachers after school now and makes an effort at doing her homework while Kim goes through cheer practice. Jason waits for them because basketball practice gets out of practice before the cheerleaders do. Billy meets them at the front door after robotics club. Zack is already waiting at the mine for them, or down in the ship. 

They only started sparring a few days ago. She felt rusty, at first. Her body knew more than her mind did. Zordon said it would be like that; they were out of sync with each other and with themselves.  _ The more you train together, the more you will become _ .

“Does he make sense to anyone? Zack had asked after that.

She gest paired up with Zack the first time and he spends the whole session making every short joke he can until Trini gets enough leverage to pull him to the ground. Jason separates them after that. 

Billy is good and Jason is strong, but Kim is her favorite partner. They’re in sync with each other. She can read Kim’s tells and Kim can read hers. She can go fast or slow it down and Kim follows along easily. Alpha called them  _ seamless _ ; where she ended, Kim began.

She knows Alpha and Jason are sparring on one side of them. Billy and Zack dance somewhere behind them. Trini is only focused on Kim. She dances away when Kim dances forward. She lunges in when Kim backs out. She blocks kicks and punches and throws them back. She can feel the pit walls at her back and then she puts Kim against them.

Everything feels like it’s lit up from the inside. She’s can feel confidence coursing through her. The world feels like it’s sitting right there in the palm of her hand. It feels electric and shiny. She dodges Kim’s jab and throws her own, sending Kim back a step.

“Tired?” she asks, panting.

Kim grins, wiping the sweat off her forehead. “No way. You?”

“Bring it.” She flies in and hears the sound of metal on metal.

Billy stops sparring and nearly takes Zack’s fist to the face. Zack pulls to the side at the last second and overextends, tumbling to the ground. He’s on his feet as quickly as he goes down, pointing at Trini. 

“You morphed!”

Trini holds up her arm. Her armor flickers around her fingers and zips up her arm, the thin metallic coating covering from the tips of her fingers to her shoulder. She can feel it start to spread across the rest of her body and then her helmet is on, the comms kicking to life. She looks at Kim and sees the Pink Ranger instead.

“We morphed,” Kim says, her words hushed by the mask over her face. “Does that mean…”

“We’re back, baby!” Zack whoops. He claps his hands together loudly. “Like Jackson 5. Like The Incredibles. Like… Like…”

“Oh! We’re, like, the Scooby Gang. See?” Billy looks around excitedly. “I knew that one.”

“I’m Shaggy,” Zack says quickly. “Billy is Velma. Of course, Jason is Freddy and-”

Trini stomps on his foot, hard. Her armor fades away. “I’m  _ not _ Scooby Doo.”

Zack drops a heavy hand onto her head. “Of course you’re not.” He pauses. “You’re Scrappy Doo.”

She swings at him and he dances away from her. Jason grins. Zack grabs him in a headlock, pulling him down into his side.

“How about the Power Rangers?” Kim asks. She grabs Trini as she darts past, pulling Trini into her side. The heat of their armor still buzzes on their skin.

Billy bounces on his toes hopefully. “How about friends?”

_ Yeah _ , Trini thinks.  _ How about that? _

-

Here’s the thing about bands: some of them get back together.

Led Zepplin. The Police. Rage Against the Machine. The Eagles. Alice in Chains.

“The Spice Girls.” Zack shrugs at them. “What? They did a whole thing, didn’t they?”

Trini picks up a small rock from the cliff edge and tosses it in his direction, but he deflects it, sending it towards Billy. Jason snatches it out of the air before it finds him. Kim leans a little heavier into her side. 

“N*Sync, too,” Kim offers.

“The Jonas Brothers.” Jason ignores Zack laughing. “Pearl likes them.”

Trini winces with each word they say. “Guys,  _ please _ .”

“Oh, oh. Sugarland.” Billy grins.

Trini groans and buries her face in Kim’s neck. Kim shivers at the feeling, her hand flexing on Trini’s thigh. “At least pick a band that’s  _ good _ .” She snaps her fingers. “Big Dumb Face got back together.” She blinks at the blank look on their face. “Wes Borland?” Nothing. “Limp Bizkit? Do you guys know  _ anything _ about music?” She lets her head drop back, groaning loudly.

Zack picks up another rock and flicks it back in her direction. “Kim, she’s broken.” He grabs for Trini’s arm, tugging. “Serious question. If we were Spice Girls, who would we be?”

She immediately points a finger at Billy, saying “Baby Spice” at the same time as Zack.

“Is she an actual baby? Because I-”

Trini considers Jason. “Ginger Spice, I think.”

Jason frowns. “Why?”

Zack shushes him. “I’m Posh Spice.”

“You’re totally Posh Spice,” Trini agrees.

“And you’re Scary Spice.”

Trini glowers.

Zack grins. “See? Guess that makes Kim Sporty Spice.”

Jason leans in again. “Why can’t  _ I _ be Sporty Spice?”

Trini settles back again, sinking into Kim’s side. Jason huffs and puffs and sits back down. Billy absently takes back the pen Zack slipped away from him earlier, tucking it behind his ear as he works some calculations over. Zack flips a rock in Jason’s direction instead. Kim’s hand finds her, palm to palm. 

So, yeah.

They’re Power Rangers.

And they’re friends. 


End file.
